Hair cut in Africa...

For the past 10 years, with the exception of a few special occasions, I have had my hair cut by friends/family; seeing as I only want a trim I figure almost anyone can do it. A little while ago I asked my mom if she could cut my hair again (like she has before) and she said “sure”.

So earlier this week, I stayed at the centre after work for a haircut. Step 1 was talking about the length of hair I wanted. I was wearing a tank top with stripes and pointed out to which stripe I wanted my hair length to be. She said “that’s too short, how about this?” and pointed to a red stripe below where I pointed. I said that was fine. We agreed. (see picture above with arrows) I was then covered up with a black cape and the cutting began.

Well, after the first cut I heard a “oops” or something to that effect and thought “oh no”. Sure enough, it was shorter than planned; even shorter than what I had first pointed out. I think it was the black cape that threw mom off because she couldn’t see the stripes anymore. Whatever it was, she felt terrible about it, while I just said “it’s okay, I’m sure it’s fine, it’ll grow back, change is good, etc.” Anyway, my hair is cut. It’s shorter than it has been in the past 20 years probably. And when we were done there was more hair on the floor than on my head. But it looks fine and anyway, like I said it will grow back. After all, what’s 27 centimeters (=10 ½ inches) of hair anyway???