I sat down and was sweating, so I toweled of my head. Well really, he did it for me and he mostly just shook my head a lot and patted the top of my hair. Then he turned on the fan in my face to cool down. I asked if he had clippers for the sides of my hair and he said yea. So I asked for a 4 on the side and the blended to the top with the scissors. He said ok.
First I should say that African English is not like American Standard English. There are funny things like how transitive verbs are not used, nor are gerunds. So "we are thinking of going to the pool" turns into "we go to the pool." It's more direct, but lacks some nuance. Also there is liberal use (usually non-use) of prepositions. As such there are miscommunications when Africans and Mzungus talk sometimes. So even if the Ugandans don't understand they will say yes or okay. This was a case where I told him what I wanted for my hair, he had no idea, then said yes only to acknowledge I made sounds.
So he dove into cutting my hair first with a 4 on the sides. That was going ok.... Then he started with the scissors. First he cut in an absolutely straight line the front of my hair. I suddenly was rocking the friar tuck look.
So I thought I would be helpful. I took the comb from him and said 'can I please show you?" And proceeded to demonstrate with his comb and scissors how to cut my own hair. He nodded enthusiastically and took the tools back. He combed up a finger full of hair and proceeded to trip it then daintily snip over the topmost hairs on my head. This clearly wasn't working.
"Can you just do my whole head with the clippers?" He smiled very big. "Yes." So he gingerly started clipping away. So I said "you can press down. Just shave it. 4 on top too, I just want it a bit shorter on the sides."
"Do you know fade?" He says. "Yes, I know what a fade is." "I can do that. I can do hair like that." So I said okay and he proceeded to give me a fade and just cut my hair like a Ugandan man's. then he pointed to the hair cut picture chart. "Number 50 please." I looked up and number 50 was the only non black guy on the chart. It was a Dominican dude for sure. My hair cutter smiled, "I am doing that and it will be good for you."
So he gave me this fade and was much more confident. Then at the end he brushed all the hair off with a towel. He checked to make sure I approved. It looked clean, and that was the most important. He then sprayed olive oil hair spray on my head in a sweet smelling cloud and proceeded to wipe my hair with a flat brush thing. It was a shoe brush. Then he baby-powdered my neck and face after trimming my beard and I was out the door.
Of course throughout this process there were people in and out to look at me while I was getting my hair cut. It was quite the exciting day for the Warid barber shop. I guess I am satisfied, though I have very little hair. But it was with the experience. And at least it will be good for hot weather.
Andrew (AJ) Doty
Monitoring and Evaluation Senior Fellow
ajd@villageenterprise.org
Uganda: +256 794 485 228
