Barber To Beauty

“I have no problem with whatever the next big look is. Just don’t try and tell me that only one look is beautiful.”     Alek Wek

Hairstyle New, Stop Press! I went Alek Wek, June Arunga and thousands of other short natural haired women – and did not even know I loved it till I turned and saw it in the mirror. Welcome to my chronicle of the big day, and the days since. Barber Black Sheep, Have you any wool? …three bags full. After my first haircut ever, I can believe that the barber could fill three or more bags of cut locks daily without a doubt.

Its summer and everyone knows that if you want to have a swimming heavy summer, all you have to do is have a maintenance free hairstyle. Having heard this call to dive in every summer that I have spent in the United States, I took myself, and the weather seriously and sought a haircut.

The Yellow Pages is Your Friend

So, I went into the Yellow Pages and searched for a good natural hair place to change over from the shoulder length hairdo I have sported for many years to a summer haircut. I called a few numbers, old school style, and settled on two shops, one to tend to my natural hair needs and the other to maintain a barber quality do thereafter. I live in Philadelphia, whose swanky South Street boasts Brownstone Natural Hair and Barber Studio, which is well known for making every client feel like a natural woman, and look it too. If you would like to schedule an appointment, these are booked up to a month in advance. The Studio is owner operated, and my stylist was one of the owners.

I went in and had a hair consultation with the resident natural stylist, who proceeded to shampoo my hair, and then picked up a shiny set of very hair-shop style scissors and relieve me of several inches of my hair. All the while I was peeking at myself in the mirror with one eye shut, this was totally new. To distract myself, I looked at what else the other patrons were getting done. One or two were having their locs retwisted, and others were having different shades of color included in their hair. I could only hear the snip snip of his scissors transforming my hair – much coaxed into many styles since I was a child, into this new do! After he was done, I looked in the mirror and went over to show my snoozing companion what I now looked like. It was amazing, I could have sworn it was a totally different person. Not someone I had seen, ever, but definitely a more familiar version of myself.

Barbershop and Me

So I called my buddy who has had a few haircuts, and asked for the male perspective on hair cuttery in this city. My concerned friend was hesitant, having seen me pour $$$ into my tresses, multiple times and did I realize that barbers were male? Undeterred, I sought a recommendation. After all, if you liked the barber, shouldn’t one return there and recommend others?  After days of asking for the name of his barber, my now-harassed friend finally yielded.

I did not know it took so long to share – I was used to the world of salons, where your hairstyle getting noticed was homage to your hairdresser and an invitation to share the address and name of your stylist. Apparently, this was a different world.   A map search of this site and a phone call later, I was in the train headed to this little Center City shop, and had my first hair cut, ever. Well, the first ever sans tears for lost tresses.

I willingly admit no small amount of hesitation. “How short did I want to get a hair cut?” “What does a breeze on the scalp even feel like?” I was curious. I have been to ladies hair salons for eons, since I can remember. I recall having my hair pulled every which direction, and teased, straightened, braided, de-tangled, fused, woven – you name it. But rarely does one go into a ladies hair care place and emerge with significantly shorter hair than before.

D-Day

It was raining. The day of the second haircut, dubbed – “My very first haircut because it was done in a real barbershop”. I walked over to the shop and checked that the phone number on the door was the same one that I had used to call ahead and make an appointment. There was no taking chances.  I took a breath steeled myself, and walked in. It was smaller than my hair salon, minimally decorated and had excellent lighting. Still taking in the shop, I did not notice my new barber walk in right after I did. So shy was I.

He invited me to the chair. My mouth went dry, and the usually chatty me went silent for a little. I croaked my request. I said “Make it even!” All the while, I had I wondered inwardly, “What does one say to a barber, what kind of small talk do people in barbershops make?” Meanwhile, I silently hoped my time in the chair would end my utter puzzlement and get me to a better length and feel. Only later did I learn that there is a language about going to the Barbershop – like “Number 1, neat all round” which denotes a very close, neat shave.

In that moment, and that chair, I had not yet mastered Barbershop Slang – and was too focused on that moment. When had I ever sat so still in my life, just to be sure that I did not botch the cut, this time for myself.  I also looked at the brushes and shavers. It was hard to imagine what each one did. Would I ever get to know these tools as well as I did the tongs and dryers of my former life? I was not sure. If there were ever a more curious chica, it was me.

Half an hour and a healthy dose of WHYY public radio later, I had my new cut, and before I could say – hold the musk, the barber had sprayed some man-smelling hair spray all over my new do, stifling the wiles of my perfume. I was too stunned with my new look to notice this very much, and enjoyed paying the barber for this service. I hoped and waited and then, saw my face and head anew. I liked this.

Alek and company were not kidding. This is a great look, the compliments are flowing!

Life in the Capitol : DC

DC is the state and city of Washington DC, the only place in the country where there are more lawmakers, yet the people who live in the city themselves are not represented, hence the slogan “Taxation Without Representation”. I have seen the ugly side and the beautiful …so let me speak to the good, the bad and the ugly.

The Good:

My first ever baseball game. Thanks to DC, I finally, after not just a couple of years, attended a baseball game, complete with overpriced concessions and everything. Well, there I am floored, it is in a very new stadium where I saw a not-so-new Nationals team played the Anaheim Angels. My thanks to the people who invented ticket giveaways, I thank C.C. for the connection to very nice tickets.

Sightseeing. I have seen the Capitol, the White House, and other sites. Also, I have experienced the best of the Festivals, including the Caribbean Fest, which draws many from the area, and environs to celebrate Caribbean culture. Also, the 4th of July was spectacular. (I know, I know, almost a month later) DC also has a vast collection of national galleries and museums. I think the rest of the world can find a piece of themselves in these displays.

DC is undoubtedly a food mecca for me. As the nation’s capital for Ethiopian food, complete with honey wine, always I and my tummy are in heaven. I have never in my young life had such a spread of doro wot, tibs fitfit, and injeera in such close proximity. I love Ethiopian food. Not to mention the food, as well as that of South America, Salvadorean, Peruvian, Brazilian and so many others. Also, the city is superb for the international crowd that you meet. For those who are part of the diaspora in the United States, you may be familiar with cities where people of color are a tiny percentage. I kid you not, there are more people of all colors, African American and African people than I am used to further north of this land.

I started this summer by moving to this area in search of opportunities, and found lots by way of learning opportunities. I did not know, for instance, that the District of Columbia leads the nation in HIV/AIDS transmission, nor that the hardest hit were African Americans, hereafter referred to as black folks (This country needs to lose the hyphen, and get united). Among that group, the most adversely affected are black women 25-44 years old. People in the developing world, does this ring a bell? It did for me. I was floored. And why, in this country, are there children being born testing HIV positive, when the drugs are available for prevention of transmission and the medical vigilance is present. But, hey, even the best trauma surgeons sometimes miss a broken arm. Good, in this case is the amazing learning opportunities, through living and working this season.

The Bad:

Reviews about the only Kenyan restaurant in DC. I was set to promote Kenyan cuisine in DC, by taking some pals there for some Nyama Choma (roast goat) then my companions went to look for some reviews and read comments ranging from “This place sucks” to “Call the Health Department” and they do not have a website so my pan-African dining companions were not going to risk our expectations and gas on going somewhere where the dining reviews said “KEEP AWAY” This is prime example of why we have a poor CV as Kenyans…unless I am to be proven wrong, Safari is losing big business this way. I am still urging my other African friends to try it, and the clock is running, so do not know whether this will happen before the end of summer. The management needs to step up their publicity, and reputation, it is still the only Kenyan restaurant in DC.

The Ugly:

Crime in DC. Why one needs as much burglar proofing as we have in DC is not the stuff of urban legend? I really feel like I am back home, what with the kind of insecurity there is in Nairobi, Kenya that calls for glass on walls, reinforced concrete doorways and so on. We have locks, lights, call back and forth to maintain security and the daily fare of shootings in the city.

What with the security systems, grilles on the windows, and the ubiquitous presence of police patrol cars every day on my street…where am I, the nation’s capital? I could also have picked the wrong neighborhood, but I also live very close to newest shopping area boasting a Target, BestBuy, Marshall’s and other big stores, so maybe the crime has not subsided yet? The irony for me is how some of the the West(development and political experts on Africa, I mean) is always trumpeting about how security is a concern in the developing world, and meanwhile, our diplomats could say the same about parts of the cities here. Not to mention that poverty and crime hold hands and walk into the sunset among the minority black, Hispanic and some immigrant communities.

I shall be sad to leave this city. I shall.

Happy Father’s Day

I watched today here as families celebrated Father’s Day. I live far away from my own Dad, but the day is no less significant for me, as a child of one dad, who has benefited from the wisdom of uncles, cousins, friends, workmates, acquaintances, pastors and neighbors too. Today, after services, a three year old said to every man that he would see near him, ” Happy Father’s Day” in a small voice with a smile from ear to ear and a hug for the men of the congregation. It was deeply moving.

In the train, on the way from the service, there was a man with a heavy bag who stood on a train where there were other seats. He looked uncomfortable, but stood, probably considering that for many of the people on the train, a heavyset olive complexioned man might frighten them, in this intolerant region. Many of the people on the train eyed him nervously. I offered him a seat next to me, and he began to tell me that he was headed for the Hard Rock Cafe for a good lunch. Turns out he was a serviceman on shore leave away from his family in Puerto Rico and wanted to have a decent meal for Father’s Day. He wistfully recounted his search for a baby supply store to go and get supplies of a certain kind of baby food for a friend stationed in Sri Lanka, who could not get that particular brand in local stores in Colombo, the capital. To him and other father’s away from their young ones, happy Father’s Day.

A friend put on his ‘away’ message, ” To the man who taught me how to be a man, happy father’s day” The best gift that a father can give to their child is to teach them how to be responsible members of the society. I can always tell who among the people I meet has been influenced by a strong father figure whether a grandpa or uncle or otherwise and those who were not paying attention during those early lessons. I say, to every man who has affirmed the dignity and worth of the women in his life, happy father’s day!

To all the single parent dad’s. To those who coach teams. To those who have mentored me. To those who have prayed with and for me. To those who protect and preserve our society. Happy Father’s Day.

Spoken Like A Child: Wisdoms from the Heart

I just began my summer vacation here and I have had some time to think about life, to meet with friends new and old, and to create memories from camera moments some which I can laugh at and others which make me long for a simpler time, like when I was a child. I want to talk a little about children, and why I believe that the world can be changed through the eyes of a child.

Aime Cesaire, writer, activist and Africanist, among other accolades once said, wisely,” “Out of the sky, the birds, the parrots, the bells, silk, cloth, and drums, out of Sundays dancing, children’s words and love words, out of love for the little fists of children, I will build a world, my world with round shoulders.” Aime Cesaire who passed on this year holds a dear place in my heart for expressing the dreams of Africans everywhere, who dared to hope for freedoms that many in other parts of the world only whispered in their sleep, when the colonial master was not listening. I see the mother of two generations nursing her child in the middle of the Emergency in 1952 knowing that this child would have a better future, because we would be certainly free.

But this post is about more than just Cesaire, and thinking further on that quote, I wandered back to my own relatively idyllic childhood, filled with space to dream and imagine and achieve, where there was Whitney Houston singing, ” I am every Woman” and happy birthday songs and singing games. My earliest memories are fairly recent to many friends, I was a child of the 1990s, and schooled before the traffic congestion in Nairobi grew to its current mammoth state. We could cross town to go to school and I remember being on the bus, I must have been eight or nine, and thinking, “What am I doing in school, I need to be out there, doing a real thing, taking a place in society.” But the bus lumbered on to school, and little did I know that the years would indeed take me far away into multiple societies.

A dream brought me farther into the world than I have ever dreamed to date, where I am three continents and sixteen hours plane ride away from Kenya, where I started to dream.”Out of love for the little fists of children…I will build a world, my world with round shoulders.”My radio alarm wakes me in the morning now, and I roll out of the house going to my workplace. I sometimes wake up with a track playing that inevitably have a line urging people to ‘raise your fists in the air…keep your head up” and as I pen this post, I see a sea of children from all over the world lost in childhood games clutching at their toys and running amok, building hope that the future will be this simple, where the games they play have a fair outcome, that is what I think when I see a world with round round shoulders. I see children with a shoulder to lean on always. A shoulder you can put your arms around and hug, where you can feel secure. Yes, I see all these things at the crack of dawn when the sun creeps in through the blinds and Corinne Bailey Rae sings ‘Like a Bird’ and croons ‘when everything else is au fait, without a doubt you’re on my side,”

Aside from what the morning makes me think of, I do believe that educating children is key to the making of the world with round shoulders. I sought nothing but a story on a school in the memory of a mother, in Sukuma Kenya’s blog, when a passerby’s comment led me to Gabriela Mistral’s quote “We are guilty of many errors and many faults but our worst crime is abandoning the children, neglecting the fountain of life. Many of the things we need can wait. The child cannot. Right now is the time his bones are being formed, his blood is being made, and his senses are being developed. To him we cannot answer ‘Tomorrow.’ His name is ‘Today.’”Did you know that the Chilean was the first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature? When we silence children or fail to discipline them, we steal their future.

I had an early start to the day talking to two African American friends, separately about the Philadelphia school system and the cycle of despair. Two scenarios came to mind. That of the children of many of the black families here, whose homes are serially broken; whose siblings may be from different fathers, who may or may not be part of their lives; whose chances of completing high school are slim. The other scenario was of their demoralized teachers, paid so little to impart a world of wisdom on children whose frustrations with a culturally insensitive educational system made them feel like outsiders before they even began. We also spoke of the reasons why many children of color from lower middle class and poor backgrounds stop school and enter the workforce, too young to develop a critical mind and too jaded to consider the possibilities of pursuing a college education.

The coffee in my hand seemed colder after these conversations, and the comfort of a warm breakfast doing little to soother the intense sensation of looking into a very deep problem with no bottom, whose waters were so murky you dared not let your mind imagine the possibilities. What of children in the developing world, who woke every day to gnawing hunger for food, who watched their parents eke out a bare-bones living, a stripped down version of living poor in the west, which they only knew from the second hand clothes they wore that came from there. The children’s world, such as in Africa where they were oblivious to the fact that their future was being decided in Japan, people in suits discussing how much Africa would have from the global cake of resources.

After all the talking, and breakfast, and thinking, I turned to another wise quote, this time from a letter my Pa sent me: “In a world of scarcity you continue enjoying abundance that is not threatened. You enjoy health that many in the world will only dream about. You have hope that knows no boundaries.” I am truly fortunate to have these dreams, these ‘dreams from my father’ to paraphrase the title of Obama’s book. Where there could have been much despair, I have been blessed, and I appreciate every ounce of love, every drop of sweat from the village that raised me and got me to where I am now.

So today, love your children, your nieces and nephews, your students, your future. Let them know they can dream, and push them to the best they can be. Bless them with love, do not withhold your correction. Teach them to be independent. Reclaim your own childhood years, you came from two parents and have half of yourself from each, but your destiny does not lie in your birthright, you are 100 percent you.

And because I love encouraging women, I leave you with the lyrics to India Arie’s ‘Beautiful Flower’ – paraphrased and emphasis mine.

This is a song for every girl who’s
Ever been through something she thought she couldn’t make it through
I sing these words because
I was that girl too
Wanting something better than this
But who do I turn to

Now we’re moving from the darkness into the light
This is the defining moment of our lives

‘Cause you’re beautiful like a flower
More valuable than a diamond
You are powerful like a fire
You can heal the world with your mind

There is nothing in the world that you cannot do
When you believe in you, who are beautiful
Yeah, you, who are brilliant
Yeah, you, who are powerful
Yeah, you, who are resilient

This is a song for every girl who
Feels like she is not special
‘Cause she don’t look like a supermodel Coke bottle
The next time the radio tells you to shake your moneymaker
Shake your head and tell them, tell them you’re a leader

Now we’re moving from the darkness into the light
This is the defining moment of our lives

(song continues on…go fetch more lyrics online)

Mama Lea Mtoto: Chakacha, Me and Taarab

Enters a slightly older version of this writer to the scene, khanga (cloth wrapper) in hand to the dais, the stage is set and the crowd is restive. She must dance, the song set to the lively chakacha beat. Her words a rumor of the song playing on the electric keyboard, traditional drums(ngoma za kitamaduni) “Lete maji…twende” (Water please, lets go), she says, like the artist in the track. Three continents away from the genesis of this genre, off the coast of East Africa, her beat intact, step step step … watch it now!

“Ukatoroka nenda zako…

Mama Lea Mtoto wako…

Siwezi bwana”

Every time I hear these songs, I am transported  to the Mombasa of my early teens or to the house kitchen a few weeks back with my buddy from the Coast!

“Leo  ni leo

Utauona mpambano kweli si urongo”

Sashay sashay, my mind’s eye sees me age five with my sash tied round  my little girl waist, just taking it one beat at a time. I struggle not to burst into hysterical  five year old girl  giggles. I want to master this dance, like I did the hoola hoop. I want this song to shine at the kindergarten end of year show.

:Shilingi yang’ara yauwa, shilingi yauwa

Life lessons in school etiquette and the value of the East African Shilling. Or was it still the Florin, or the ever present Kenya Pounds( At Ksh 20 per pound) which the mathematics texts were so in love with.

Ukitaka nyoa nywele aro aro

I am so feeling this one mix record with all these songs and it is great to see the beauty in the music of Taarab. For those who are fairly unfamiliar, the word taarab is of Arabic derivation and contains multi-layered meaning.

Gilbert Rouget in Music and Trance explains taarab comes from “the verb tariba which means “‘to be moved, agitated‘…also signifies ‘to excite, to want to move,’ and hence ‘to sing, to make music.” Often seen and heard at weddings in Zanzibar, which claims taarab as its national genre as well as many parts of the Swahili speaking world, the taarab artistes construct a rich thread of rhythms from all over the world to bring Swahili poetry, regional music, traditional music and instruments and modern day flair into the best of musical experiences in my view.

Taarab is Swahili wedding music, and the only time when I saw  people dancing to taarab would be when there  was a Coast Nite for Nairobians and the camera crews would capture the beautiful, carefully dressed ladies at a wedding party. Nowadays, even though there is YouToub, I find myself pandering for the days of one national broadcaster bringing the best artistes of the day to our screens. Alilili;lilililililili!, is my ululation of choice.

You should see me now, dance dance.

Have a leo-ni-leo day (Lyrics “Today is the day!”)