I have been growing my hair of late. It is not going too well. My hairline halfway down the back of my head because of too much plaiting. The hair is not long enough for me to do anything else with it. It's really frustrating, especially if you have an interview to go to the next day. It seems I will have to bear the ET look thoughout Winter, which I am not complaining about because my hoodie collection is not looking too bad.
I made a plan and I looked presentable (well according to me anyway). Having to wait an hour and a half for the train to the Winelands bored me to death. My attention turned to my head and I started scraching and puting it back in place. So by the time I left Cape Town Station, I looked like I had never come in contact with a comb to start with. I made a mental note to do something about this hair as soon as I got back to the station.
Now if you have ever walked in a train station, taxi rank, the street or any place where you are likely to meet women with bad hair (around SA) , then you know where I am going with this.You see, as soon as I surfaced from inside the train station, I had about 3 women shoving boards with pics of nicely plaited hair on them in my place.
Basically these women can spot a bad hair day from a mile away, I think it's part of their training or a sixth sense they develop as soon as they learn how to plait hair. I was not going to shrug them off like the lady walking in front of me did because like an alcoholic walking into an AA meeting, I knew I had a problem and only they could help me.
About 30 minutes later, I was having my hair poked and prodded in an effort to have long neat cornrows running down my hair ( think wheat plantations or early Alicia Keys). Because they work from booths the size of a toilet, there is very little space to move. You can bet your last R80 that they will fit five customers in there and each with their own designated "hairdresser". It is therefore not highly suprising that at some point I had this woman's butt in my face and soon as that was over, her elbow was flying too close to my eye because there is so little space and the lady on my right was giving me funny looks because i found her there and was gonna leave before she did, but clearly its not my fault that her head is big (ok so its not her fault either).
Anyway, as my head is getting tighter and tighter, I kept trying to look down in an effort not to bust out into tears and when I did eventually look up, I was looking into this woman's hairy cleavage. What a traumatic sight! She had pretty little boobs with a bit of hair in the chest area and a bit of hair on the chin. I really didn't understand why she had to stand in front of me (of all people). For a moment I wished I could go across the street and get myself a cheap pair of sunglasses just to protect my eyes.
And then she left and all the pain I was feeling on head turned to little tingling sensations, partly because it was all about to be over but also because I was already visualising how relaxing it would be once I get the chace to jot this all down. So I have decided to put the thought of cutting my hair out of my brain (for now), ignore the obvious health harzards at the Salon and go again as soon as I have another bad hair day but hopefully with a camera in hand this time.