My African Hair Adventure

21 hours and 45 minutes.
A total of four days.
3 days in the salon and one day of just me.

I thought the Nile was intense… no, this hair ordeal was the most draining and time consuming thing I have ever done in my entire life. I’m just so glad I like it, cause if not that would have really sucked. Jill and I were an amazing team. We must go by Nochewala (Jill) and Nantungo (me) now, because you just can’t have a white name with African hair like this.
All I have to say is, These African women who do hair… they are beasts. They are so tough. I was insanely exhausted and my back hurt like crazy, and also super anxious to be done… which took forever to be a reality. Luckily for Nochewala, she finished on the first day, she had much less hair than me and she wasn’t able to go back like I was, so my ladies stopped working on me and finished her. I was glad she got through though, and I really did need a break. But it’s still a stinkin’ hilarious story. I’ll take it day by day so you get the full affect of how great/horrible it really was.

Day one: Friday 10/9/09 12 hours. 8am to 8pm

Jill and I got to the Salon around 7:40 in the morning, we would have been there at seven, but Ivan was really late picking us up. I found it hilarious, they continually told me how I had to much hair, but then they decided to do the braids that would take the absolutely longest time imaginable. I seriously think some of these twists only have like five hairs in them, maybe even less in the front. It was ridiculous.










This is Aisha (on the left) and Florence (behind me). Aisha owned the place. She started working on me, and then Florence started a little later on the back. Florence worked on me all of Friday, and Aisha would pop in and out. I tried to do homework during this adventure. For the first six hours I managed to read one and a half chapters of a book and some packet readings. But after their lunch break, Florence showed me how to twist too, and I did that for the next six hours. So I worked on all the twists that Aisha had done half way (she would just start a bunch of them and then move on, it made it go much faster once I learned how to twist as well, and honestly, I’m a horrible person for thinking this, but I’m such a perfectionist that I felt like I did a better job twisting than they did, they did it faster, but I made sure my hair didn’t stick out… I know I’m horrible, they really did do a great job). They were all impressed by my twisting skills. I couldn’t tell exactly what they were saying but every once in a while I would here “well done mzungu” and they would show off what I had done to the people who stopped by. It made me happy =) I feel like I should definitely get some community engagement hours for it. Then at 8 at night they stopped working on me and put this enormous bun on the top of my head, it was literally a second head, I think I could have hidden a baby in it, or a bird could have made it its nest.

Which then leads me to day 2Now on day 2 I only spent two hours in the salon, from 7am to 9am. Everyone was supposed to meet at seven to work on me but only Aisha was there. All the other ladies you see in the picture didn’t arrive until 8. But look at this, count how many ladies are working on my head. There are 4 ladies twisting around me, and myself… that makes 5 people! It was intense. And I still wasn’t even close to being done.

So yet again my hair was wrapped up in this giant monstrosity upon my head and I walked straight to school to leave for our weekend trip to Luweero.

Luckily for me, since I did know how to twist, and there were many partially twisted strands, I got to spend another three hours that day working on it on my own. Two on the bus and one during our only hour of free time. Everyone was quite impressed with its massiveness.

Which brings me to Sunday. My growth got to go to church with me, it was the best catholic mass I have ever been to in my life. I didn’t have a clue what was being said (it was all in Luganda) but the priest was so relational, so enthusiastic and vibrant that it didn’t even matter, we were all hooked. And the congregation definitely exemplified the Father Gerrie’s genuine heart and passion as well. The music was amazing. The service was just about three hours long, but that didn’t even matter. It was awesome! My head did start to feel like the weight of the bun was going to make it fall off, but I survived and was able to relieve the pressure by taking out the bun on the bus afterwards.

I twisted for another hour and a half on the bus, until I started to feel nauseous and Dean made me stop. And then for the best part, when I got home, I slaughtered the beast! I cut off like ten pounds of extra hair on the ends. I spent 45 minutes cutting, with a little bit of twisting here and there. It was amazing, I felt like I had been freed from this horrible bondage. My hair still wasn’t done, but it looked so much better, and it made the last day go so much faster (and I got it to look how I wanted it to J ).

Day 4: Monday (your birthday mommy!) And victory day for me and my hair! It just took 2 and a half hours, I was so relieved. Aisha did do the braids way bigger, but I didn’t even care, I was just so glad to be rid of the bun. Aisha tried to put my hair up in a pony tail and I was just, please, let me wear it down… she finally agreed.
So, once all the hair was completely done, we trimmed off some ends and then dipped my hair in boiling water to like seal it I guess. It made the ends look so much nicer, they weren’t all frizzy and looking like I was struck by lightning anymore.
And so 21 hours and 45minutes later, 14 hours for Nochewala…. And we finally finsished! It was tons of fun. People keep asking me if it was worth all the time it took. Part of me was like no way! Bigger braids look just as good and they take a third of the time, and the other part of me was like, this is a stinkin’ hilarious story… yeah, it was worth it.
So now, I’m working on the head pat. These things make your head itch so bad, and you can’t scratch! All you can do is either beat your head, or just press down hard and rub. I prefer the second but sometimes the first comes in handy if I’m angry… JK J This concludes Nantungo’s African Hair Adventure. Sorry it was so long, but it was a very long process. I hope you enjoyed it! But… I wonder what’s going to happen when I try to take it out???