ABOUT: HAIR IN A SALON

Afrodizzyiac Chronicles: This week I'm excited to share an enchanting story of the inner workings of an African Hair Salon, the "Afrodizzyiac" in Johannesburg South Africa; pages torn from the diary of an old friend Nolizwe Mhlaba in our 0.4 installment of a series of Hair Stories. Nolizwe is currently pursuing further studies in education. She is a trivia enthusiast and restless traveler, on a mission to tell the layered stories of Africa/ns to both willing and unwilling audiences. In her own words:

The Appointment: 1 August 2015

I went to get my hair braided in Randburg today and my girl 'Betty' did not keep my appointment. Standard. If anyone arrives even ten minutes before my appointment (and I always keep time), she will snatch up that client with quickness without any consideration. I do not blame her though. Business is business. I told Betty to expect me in the afternoon, not early in the morning as I would be going to apply either for a South African work permit in Harare or a US visa in Joburg. Later on, I gave her a specific time: 2pm. What was I thinking? August 1, 2015. The first day of the month AND a Saturday. Payday was yesterday, so you better believe, everyone was out and about getting ready for that touch-up that may only last till mid-month but is absolutely necessary come month end.

Naturally,

I walked in and she was halfway through braiding a little girl who looked about ten years old. Since I am a regular, loyal client who has referred a handful of friends to her, and since I had communicated with her well in advance, Betty would not just leave me to sit unattended. She set a new girl, 'Faith' onto me, but instructed her to start from the back of my head. The front is off-limits. Only Betty can do that – and I suppose that is an unwritten rule in hair salons. Your girl (or guy) will allow their more junior colleagues to do such things as the “lines” (cornrows) for your weave, the braids in the back that won’t always be seen, the washing and blow-drying etc. But only your girl can style your hair, determine the appropriate thickness of braids, or put those finishing touches that customers tend to smile widely or frown deeply about. All this is because she has grown to know you and the facial expressions that give you away, no matter what. This, even if, like me,

you get the same hairstyle every time!

So, along came Faith and she started with a too-thin braid, which I asked her to bulk up a little. Betty cooed some encouraging remarks from behind the 10-year old girl’s head. I couldn’t tell if they were directed at me or at Faith. Eventually, Faith and I found a rhythm that worked. As usual, I pressed the braid to my scalp in those all-too-sensitive parts. Betty would have even prompted me to hold the braid, I still groaned to myself.

Once I was comfortable,

I surveyed the room (in the mirror, of course) and marveled at the busyness. In their downtime, hairdressers do each other’s hair. Today, there was no downtime. Betty remarked, “Yah ne, today it’s busy. You know we’re busy when it’s not just the regulars coming in. When the work crowd randomly comes in, yah, that’s when you know.” It just so happened that the Orlando Pirates-Kaizer Chiefs game was on, so the main barber (there are three) was decked out in his black and yellow team colours, eyes darting to the TV every couple of minutes, between fades, dye jobs, and wash-and-dry hair do’s. One of the new hairdressers became more vocal about her support for Pirates once it got to the penalty shoot-out and an Orlando victory was

imminent.

In addition to this buzz, there was a steady stream of entrepreneurs flowing in and out of the shop all afternoon. A Zimbabwean lady, who is apparently in the import-export business, tried to explain to Faith why she hadn’t yet delivered her goods. Faith wasn’t having it: "All these excuses – this is why your business isn’t going anywhere". The older, heavyset white man, a regular, went to each station, greeting the hairdresser, and offering his wares: scissors and combs of all shapes and sizes. The fruit seller walked in with his box of naartjies (tangerines), bananas, and, if it had been a good day, he said, apples. These were just a few of the people on their hustle to eke out a living in this land.

The African salon,

is a great equalizer in many ways. We all walk in with our different backgrounds. At the end of the day, though, everyone wants to look good – or at least presentable. No matter where society puts you on the socioeconomic scale, your hair can still look as busted and then as fly as the next person’s during a visit to the hair salon. In this salon, I have encountered people from all over South Africa (Transkei, Durban, Polokwane, etc.) and from different parts of Africa (mainly southern Africa and Nigeria). I always catch “Ki lo de,” followed by some less familiar, deep Yoruba. Malawians, Zambians, Zimbabweans, Mozambicans, Angolans, Congolese. What I especially love about this particular hair salon is how the hairdressers have come to understand bits of each other’s languages. So they will mix isiZulu with Sesotho or Shona – and get each other – most of the time, anyway.

They bring diversity to life.

The hair salon is a community. The hairdressers look out for each other. They would rather sit and wait for would-be customers than poach an existing client from a colleague. They gather monies so that whoever’s turn it is can go buy lunch or snacks for the others. If someone has had back-to-back clients, and has not had a chance to stop for lunch, someone will step in for them to work on that back part – or finish off braids that were not done to the very end of the hair. They share intimate details about each other’s lives. They gossip about clients – and even each other. They encourage each other; they call each other out. They respect the hustle, and know it is not easy to raise a family on just a hairdresser’s salary. The market is not regulated.

For all intents and purposes, they are a family.

A large extended family, if you will. They will talk about the Angolan sisters who recently came into money and are “blowing it” changing up their Brazilian weaves “every other week.” And you may be reminded of those other sisters you and your cousins gossiped about from afar. They will tell you about the recently widowed young woman with the four-year-old daughter. And you may recall, with sympathy, a tragedy that befell some newlywed couple you know. They will allude to their dreams for the future. About the ten-year-old she was braiding, Betty later said, “I’ve been doing her hair since she was seven. I started three years ago! I need to do better". I said to her you should be saying ‘I used to do her hair, and she still comes to my salon where one of my girls does her hair.” And Faith replied, “We should be seen to be going somewhere in life.” In that moment, I was reminded that ambition is not reserved for a select few. Anyone can dream big. However, the challenge is in creating opportunities for people to fulfill their

ambitions.

Yet, the hair salon is still a business. Hairdressers who have worked their way up in this shop have to pay rent for their seat. This may explain why prices in some hair salons are ridiculously high (by African standards. America, I cannot deal with your braiding prices). More important than this rent is the need to cover or at least contribute to the payment of costs of living: homes, schools, remittances, and so on. Faith is relatively new to this shop, so she does not yet have her own seat. In a sense, she is like an intern: there to assist everyone else; working very hard, but for much less than everyone else. I discovered today, through serious straining of my ears, that Faith is entitled to a cut of proceeds from each hairdresser she helps. As a non-expert eavesdropper, I did not catch the specifics of said cut. However, the minute Faith switched to her mother tongue to talk about this Queen Bee figure of a colleague, I knew she was unimpressed with the R100 she was given for the many pre-weave “lines” she’d plaited and the braids she had completed en masse. Eventually, she mustered up the courage to ask for what she felt was due her. Awkward, but every rand counts. A tense, hushed conversation between Faith and her colleague resulted in a compromise disbursement, as well as a clarification of expectations from both sides.

For next time.

I walked out of the hair salon with Betty telling me, as always, to try a new style. I also walked out with a goofy grin and a deep, unshakeable nostalgia, because hair salons always remind me of my childhood, of my days in boarding school, and of the proverbial village of wonder women who raised me.

#economy #culture #hairstories