This week max and I decided it was time for another cultural experience, new haircuts. After some serious investigating while walking the streets of Nairobi scouting for any kinyozi with mzungus inside, we struck out on our first two attempt to locate a barber shop suitable for our delicate waspy locks. Admitting defeat after two lunch breaks of ducking our heads into every corner kinyozi and striking out time after time, I resorted to asking Nelson when I had returned home for the evening. "Of course," he said, "I know a place just down the street at the Westgate Mall that'll sort you boys out nicely. It's near Girigiri, where the UN headquarters and many embassies are, so they're quite used to cutting mzungu hair."
Needless to say, we heeded his advice and Butch kindly brought us to the barber shop the very next day. As I have heard Max explain several times already, walking into the kinyozi was like walking into a scene from the movie Barber Shop, complete with rows and rows of gentleman getting their weekly cuts and shaves in rows of black leather chairs lined against both walls. The sound of clippers buzzing and humming in harmony was trumped only by the sound of the British commentators calling the football match on the massive flatscreen tv in the corner near the sitting area. The receptionist offered us juice and water as we waited for our guys to finish with their customers.
As we waited for what seemed like an hour, we watched the match between Newcastle and Southampton, all the while nervously awaiting our new Nairobi hairdos. Perhaps because of the match playing in the background, at one point we were both wholly convinced that we were going to leave the shop with some awesome Eurotrash footballer haircuts with longer top sections and practically shaved sides. We also joked about getting ourselves some classic shape-ups, complete with the razor straight lines cut into our sideburns. After more careful deliberation, we decided that although the hair would grow back, our pasty white scalps would likely suffer from the intense midday African sun, especially on our safaris in Tanzania for the next two weeks.
Eventually our guys finished with their customers, and called us over to their stations, two chairs side by side closest to the tv and the game. With some very broken Swahinglish, in the next thirty to forty seconds, I did my best to explain to my man what I was looking for in the cut. Eventually we came to a mutual understanding that I would like it cut shorter. Not surprisingly, the aforementioned decision on "shorter" was entirely relative and his definition turned out to be much different than my own. At this point he grabbed a tuft of my hair in his fingers and with his comb indicated a length of about half the former length towards which he would be working. Sawa sawa, I told him, agreeing to the abbreviated length. Soon he began to work his way around my head with his scissors, all the while laughing at the conversation Max and his man were having about his intended style. Of course, Max has shorter hair already, so he had significantly less at stake in this endeavor from my perspective.
I tried not to look in the mirror as he worked, and instead fixed my eyes and head on the nearby screen, straining my neck to catch the action as the game heated up and wound down to the final minutes of play. His experience and judgement would suffice, I decided, and I stopped making an effort to explain to him that I did not want a crew cut. After a while working with the scissors lopping off the longer top sections, he fetched his arsenal of electric clippers, with which he tackled the sides and back of my head. I tried not to notice how much hair was falling onto my lap and apron. Still, I knew it was getting shorter. Much shorter. Some 25 minutes later, after what seemed like the longest and most precise cut and shaping my head has ever experienced, I was ready for the finishing touches, all of which were performed with his trusty clippers. I thanked the nice barber, shook his hand, paid the receptionist, and headed out the door with a new spring in my step and a "smart" new haircut, as Kenyans would say. Although my hair has not been this short since my mohawk post-season days on the soccer team back in high school, I think it looks nice. Either way, it's much less maintenance at this length, and much cooler in the midday heat.
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| Here it is, folks. I've just taken this picture with my webcam as I sit in a lovely rooftop Java and cyber cafe, which I have made my camp for the day because I have no classes and tons of work to complete before we head to Tanzania Saturday morning. |
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