I Whip My Hurr

Or actually, now I don't. I went native. Well, as native as purple cornrows makes me. Which actually turns out to be quite a bit. That's right, I gots my hurr did. And it's awesome. Now, before you freak out Mom, since I know you and Aubrey are the only ones reading this, they aren't that bright of purple. More of a dark purple, which only seems bright at the ends or in the light.
Let me tell the whole story. My hair has been driving me crazy. It has grown to be lusciously long and smooth, which is great in many other places besides Ghana. Instead I have simply been fed up with the fact that hair down = nasty sweaty neck and hair up means some variation on the same hairstyle everyday. So I guess I just opted for the exact same hairstyle every day for a month. I won't explain the reasoning behind it, because honestly, there wasn't much.
So after a few days of considering, I decided to have Margaret take me into town and show me the greatest "beauty saloon" in town. She happily complied, and Vida came with.
It wasn't the first time I've done something somewhat drastic with my hair on a whim. Probably won't be the last.
I sat in the patio chair outside the shop and waited as Margaret explained that the obroni wanted obibini hair. After some consideration, I was informed that my hair was too "slippery" for just natural braids, something I'd actually been quite proud of in the past, and that I would need some artificial hair braided in as well. I was then presented with an assortment of hair in a large array of colors. My eye fell naturally on the pink, but after some discouragement from Vida and Margaret, I remembered that I was on school business, and instead chose the purple. Purple is much more professional.


With no direction from me or Vida, the hairdresser got to work. She had her pick, her hands, and a girl to hand her clumps of fake hair, and she was set. The crowd around the shop was in interesting mix. There were about 5 girls in yellow and green uniforms doing odd jobs, until it got busy enough for them to have work to do as well. Then there was me and Vida. Other customers came and went, along with passers-by who all needed to come and give their opinion on everyone's styles. Luckily I kept getting unsolicited reinforcement, which is what every girl needs when they do something spontaneous with their hair.


The process was slow going, but tedious. It only hurt when she would get to the little hairs and insist on pulling them all into the braid. I may have cried, but I'm pretty sure it was just watery eyes. The strangest part of the process was when one of the girls brought over a boiling pot of water. I didn't realize it was for my head until I felt it being poured over the newly fake ends of my hair. And by felt I mean I sensed the steam and intense heat on my back, through the bowl and my shirt. But I'm pretty sure it was to seal off the ends of my hair, so the braids stayed braided. Then she put in some gold accents to finish it off, and I was finished.

As we walked home, Vida cheerfully translated the shouting as we walked home. The benefit of this was that I learned that not all of the yelling is bad. In fact, most of them were quite complimentary. So I took that as a sign that my purple cornrows are, in fact, bringing me a hair closer to being African.