Hair Braiding

For awhile I've been tempted to get my hair braided in the African way. It kind of started when I met another white girl here who had gotten her hair braided and really enjoyed it. She had kept it in over a month and it seemed low maintenance. So when I got to Tamale, the American girl who I'm living with, Shelby, and I decided to do it. We thought it would be fun. Unfortunately we were wrong.

After getting to the hair braiding place at noon, we realized that they were already busy with several costumers but we didn't have a problem with waiting. When they finally started with us, they gave us these huge bunches of synthetic hair to hold in our laps that would eventually be on our head. Then they began the 7 hour process of taking small little chunks of hair and adding synthetic hair to make 121 braids on my head (we counted later when we took them out!). This process was extremely painful as it felt like they were ripping my hair out of my head Furthermore, they conveniently placed all my unbraided hair in a large clip dangling in front of my face throughout the process. But, no worries. Yes, my butt was falling asleep after sitting in that chair so long. But I had been reading Compassion for one of my HNGR readings and so I kept reminding myself "patience...patience, solidarity...solidarity, compassion."

Finally, the braids were done! But then they dipped all my hair in a pot of boiling water. Then they covered the top with shea butter, I think. Then they lit a flame on a can of kerosene and basically torched the top of my head which was mildly terrifying. However, I made it out unscathed! Finally, I thought it was done but a lady montioned me to the back where she yanked up my new, waist-long braids into an updo. It was so painful that when Shelby and I got home, we took a picture, took out the updo, took an ibuprofen, and tried to sleep.

Over the next five days, we got many wonderful compliments from Ghanaians who just loved our new hair. We kind of enjoyed the new look, but we just couldn't stand the itchiness. Apparently your scalp gets itchy both when you have a ton of synthetic hair attached to your head and when your hair has almost been yanked out of your head. We had sores all over our head and finally after 5 days we just couldn't stand it any longer. We took it out and it took 9 hours! We ended up with very frizzy heads. Now our hair is back to normal but I swear I've lost at least a quarter of my hair! Feeling much thinner these days after pulling out so many loose chunks of hair. Pray that I don't come back bald! haha