I have two least favorite places;
Hospitals and hair salons
I also hate having my picture taken in a studio.
Whenever I have to go to the hospital I get a bout of anxiety and my mood just drops to subzero and nothing, not even a cheerful lab technician can make me feel otherwise.
I hate being sick to the point of having to seek medical attention in a hospital.
In the last weeks I've had the unpleasant pleasure of being in all he three places.
The hair salon experience went thus:
scene 1
(Enter woman of middle age, she is talking to someone on the phone. She has her index finger raised to emphasize a point)
Cecilia: I will come at 3 pm and all I need is a blow dry, but I need lots of conditioner.
Scene 2
(Scene changes to the salon reception. It is both a beauty shop and salon. A girl comes to ask if the middle aged woman wants to buy something)
Cecilia: No I'm here for a blowdry I called earlier
Girl: Ok, let me find out
(She walks into the next room and comes back with two middle aged women)
Woman 1: Hannah left earlier but you can have your blowdry
(Cecilia panics. Should she leave right away, should she fake a phonecall and never come back?)
Cecilia: I want you to wash my hair with cold water. I have put egg and avocado in it
Woman 1 throws a look at woman 2 and states:
Why don't you wash this hair for me?
I must mention that I have clearly come in at a bad time in the day. I can tell they are tired and ready to go home and don't want to be bothered about pre-poos and wet hair patting.
So I panic again
The wash is fine and once it's over I expect conditioning then combing.
Cecilia: Did you put any conditioner?
Woman 2: She will put in live in.
She says sit on that chair and wraps a twice used towel on my head.
Woman 1 comes and connects the blowdryer.
Cecilia: Will you not put any conditioner?
Woman 1: (To woman 2) I don't put conditioner because it slides
She's starts to tag and pull at my hair. She is pulling it so hard I can feel the roots coming out.
Cecilia: (To self) Think happy thoughts . Si ni wewe umejileta? Ebu sit and go through with it.
Then the blowdryer comb jumps out and falls to the floor.
She takes some live in conditioner, 10ml, spreads it on her palms then touches bits of my hair with it.
Cecilia: (I roll my eyes)
The blowdryer comb drops again. Woman 2 comes over to assist.
Scene3
(The madam of the salon has been on an international whatsapp video call since I came in. She is on loudspeaker for our benefit. Now she tells the other person to hold on because something has come up)
Madam: Aaah ... Angines, you can't do this hair like that?
(Takes the blowdryer and starts to tag my hair backwards) If you blow it upwards it will puff and you'll never get it straight.
Customer, did you comb your hair before you came?
Cecilia: I wanted to put...
Madam: Uuuui, Kwani you had just undone twists?! Angines, see, see this twist.
Woman 1: Did you comb your hair?
Cecilia: I told you to let me brush it before you started with cond...
Madam: ah ah ah, conditioner is not the reason. Me, I know such kind of hair. You don't need conditioner.
Cecilia : (all of you are crazy and I'm going to walk over into that sink and wash off this straight hair this minute. Cecilia calm down, think of Saturday)
So now three women are standing around me.
They have no idea how claustrophobic I am feeling right now.
Can they all go away!
Madam: Customer, you don't have to use avocado and eggs, they're nice treatments with even onions.
Cecilia:(Why would I want onions in my hair)
So anyway, I leave the salon looking excecutive enough but having lost quite some length of my hair.
I'm shocked to see full hair cuts inside the following day.
Who puts heat onto natural hair without conditioner?
In 2019?
I don't really mind hair a lot because for me it grows even without products. But I can't believe that after two years and eight months of staying away from salons I still go on and get the same rough, untrained, experimental, unpolished experienced.
Like, why would someone assume that just because I didn't waltz in in an Afro my hair is automatically knotted?!
There is a difference
There is knotting (kushikana)
Then there are curls (kwībīra)
And in this age, the customer knows what they need done on their hair.
A week later I can still feel the tug and pulling of my head.
Scene 4
(Family gathering.)
Mother: You combed your hair. (Calls her sisters) Come and see she brushed her hair. Niaracanūrire njuiri.
Cecilia: I brush my hair
Aunt 1: Wow you look nice
Aunt 2: You were blessed with hair.
Cecilia :
(It's easy to love me now
Would you love me if I was down and out?
Would you still have love for me?
It's easy to love me now
Would you love me if I was down and out?
Would you still have love for me ?
)
So anyway,my salon experience was no better than when I went in 2016.
But then I began to think that maybe I am unsatisfied in many ways. Too high expectations from the wrong service givers.
So I went and had this picture taken. I hated every minute of it.
I complained the entire time the guy tried to edit it, and when he was done I asked him why he was taking too long.
Next I will write about my hospital experience: Social bias, absentmindedness and the assumption that you find in public hospitals.
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