I have a date with Cathrine, a Ghanaian friend, today. She is bringing me to a hairdresser. At first, we go to the market, to buy hair. Black hair. I just let Cathrine talk as I trust she knows what is best among all this hair. Then I follow her away from town, through some streets that I don’t know. Maybe I have passed here in the car, with Kwamina, but I am not sure.
We make our way across a few backyards and behind some cloth hanging on a line, we find the place we wanted to go. Cathrine asks a small girl to go and get Sister Anita and we we wait on the small couch in the hair salon. It is a tiny room with all kind of things hairdressers use and posters with different hairstyles. Sister Anita comes and Cathrine tells her what style to do for me. I don’t understand but again I trust them to know what will fit me. Anita takes my new black hair and lets it run through her fingers to make it straight. I am told to sit down on a low stool and then she starts. Standing in front of me, she ties a strand of black hair to my own and braids it. Cathrine holds back the rest of my hair, standing in my back. The first black braid comes down in front of my eyes and braid by braid the curtain becomes thicker and thicker. Some parts on my head are more painful, some less. Anita is careful with me but gradually, talking to Cathrine and another woman, she falls into her normal rhythm and pulls harder. She is fast, but it still takes time and the sitting itself, crouched and bended, becomes increasingly uncomfortable. Through the curtain of braids I watch two small boys playing and then eating and listen to the women talking in Fantse. Cathrine holds my head, and I am glad she is there. After about two hours, the last braid is finished. I can stand up and stretch my legs. I don’t see much through the hair hanging in my face and do not look into the mirror. Then I am told to sit down again and Anita takes all the braids and ties them back into one ponytail. It feels funny when I wrinkle my brow now, as if I can’t look angry anymore. Finally, I look into the mirror. The braids are bigger than it felt and of course I am not used to black hair but it is really nice. It looks so different. The women like it, too and Cathrine calls me Charley, a Ghanaian.
At that moment, the rain starts. We can’t go out now so we wait and I watch another woman get curls. A girl brings something to eat and she has an umbrella that we borrow from her to go back to town. The rain is really heavy now, but we find a taxi very quickly. A female passenger looks at me and seems to be impressed. “Your hair looks nice.” That is good to hear. Something different than we usually hear in taxis.
