I had been counting down the days after I hit on the perfect plan for what to use my weekly savings for. A professional hot comb.
The salon belonged to my school-mate’s mother. I had also been trying all week to talk to the girl, to try to make friends with her. We were not in the same stream, but it was crucial for me to talk her into some amiability of sorts Maybe I could get to ask her how much her mother charged, if she was the one who chomad the hair herself, things like that.
Well, I did succeed, but didn’t get much except that her mother only managed the money, she didn’t put iron combs on the sigiri and singe people’s hair, there were hairstylists employed to do that. You see, my hair is that kind which is like the shrubs that struggle to survive in the Sahara desert. Its length has never ever gotten beyond two inches, even with chemicals, strings, braids, cornrows.
I had been trying for years, since I was six, standing on an upturned pail in the bathroom mirror, and using the wooden kichanuo to twist it around and around the teeth, to loosen the tight black curls and make them longer (My young mind really believed that the endless determined twisting brought it out from my scalp).
Thank God my mother was not one for haircuts (a doctor once suggested that she should cut my hair after I’d gotten a ringworm patch from school. I looked at my mother with pleading doggy-like eyes, imploring her not to take off my crown. I also worried how I would face my school-mates with their long puffs and matutas. Anyway, she didn’t even broach the subject of a haircut and I breathed easy as the fungal cream and de-worming tablets did their work.) but she also had no idea about plaiting either.
And so, I tried to twist and plait and when that refused to work, I used the wooden comb to stretch the locks which just sprang back into place, frustrating all my efforts. I also cannot recount how many times I pulled the kaweke into a stubborn puff held together by black thread from my mother’s sewing box, one that only held the hair in the middle. Once, we went out for an afternoon drive in the hills, and when we got back, only a few tufts of hair remained held tight by the string. Oh, how I tried.
But now I had heard that the hot comb could do it easily, with the least effort required for the task. My sisters had no problems with their manes- Susan always cried when her hair was combed, and Carol was not bothered. Not like me.
I felt a bit shy to announce to Mummy what I intended to do with the savings from my break money on Saturday afternoon. She knew how much I loved long hair because I had told her so as I fed hers with the mix of coconut and red castor oils while she dozed off from the softness of my young expert fingers.
Now, Saturday morning was here, and I needed to make arrangements- did I need to wash my hair first? Did I need to leave it a bit wet? Did I need to put in some coconut and red castor oils? What about a comb- should I pack one? Mummy smiled when I told her- she understood my struggle. She asked me how much the salon charged. I had no idea but I guessed it would be about 5 shillings. And I quickly quipped, “I can afford it. I saved my break money!” Lunch was eaten in anticipation of the glorious puff I would have on my head that afternoon. Rosebud was away in boarding school and could not offer any expert advice having been a recipient of the hot piece of metal untold times in the midst of a flow of tears.
I asked Mummy for a piece of string that I would use for the puff and was soon on my way. The woman at the saloon welcomed me and asked if I was waiting for somebody. That kind of unnerved me. I was the one there for service I said. “Unataka kufanya nini kwa nywele zako sweetie?”
“Nataka kuchoma.”
And so it was that she took her own wooden comb and roughly took it through the coarse shrub on my head. Painful. But I would bear it. After all, no gain with no pain. Then it was the short walk to the door, the hair was not chomad inside. There was another customer and the salon lady told me to "ngojea kidogo". The customer was soon done and I took my place on the wooden chair. I watched as she put the straightener on the red hot coals. It singed the hair and oil that had stayed on the comb and the smell was terrible. Anyway, I was determined to stand on the upturned pail in the bathroom mirror and sing to myself as I styled my puff on Sunday morning.
She sectioned the hair, commenting that it was really short and the wondering if the wooden comb would do the job (I learned later that it was dangerous and unheard of to use a comb with steel teeth, because it automatically burnt your scalp). Then she opened the plastic container of jelly- it was a yellow cheap-smelling petroleum that my sisters and I had always dismissed as cheap- and smeared it into the three tufts at the front.
“Eh, so she was starting at the front?" I thought. "Bad thing she doesn’t have a mirror to let me watch the progress.”
Anyway, the name of the game was to be patient as she stood over me and made me more beautiful. The comb was picked from the sigiri smoking hot, and wiped off on a wet cloth that had been singed in many places (I also learned later that very hot combs broke the hair and caused ugly split ends, the reason many women only did it for events like weddings), then she cupped my forehead and put the comb on my hair. I nearly jumped as the heat melted the oil which quickly slid down to the scalp. “Kaa vizuri Mammy, utachomeka!” She was a patient sort.
With the first tuft straightened, she put the hot-comb back on the stove. I was tempted to ask her for a mirror to see the transformation, but I held my tongue. Soon, the second and third tufts were done and then she did the other side of the front, explaining that since my hair was so short, the work would be slow. Apart from the hot oil melting on my scalp, and the heat I was feeling under the heavy leso she told me to wrap around my neck and shoulders to avoid any accidents, things were going smoothly. Or so I thought.
I was not prepared for the back section of the head, the one she had left for last due to its delicateness. There’s something about the snip of scissors near the ear that is so ominous. That is the same feeling of a rod of heat hovering around your nape. My nape. J-E-H-O-V-A-H! As the comb approached, I felt a tingling sensation and I jumped. The comb caught the side of my head, near the right ear and singed. I let out a loud yelp. “Kalia straight Mammy, utachomeka!” She scooped a dab of the cheap yellow jelly (why is it called jelly anyway? Because jelly has never been oily!) and rubbed it onto the burn. With that corner of my head done, she went for the left side. More torture. The dreams of standing on the upturned pail in the bathroom, twirling in the mirror and singing at the top of my voice as I combed my straight puff out on Sunday morning had disappeared into thin air. The notion of puffs was hot air. The tingles radiating from somewhere in the middle of my back, my spine, racing into my neck, spreading out to my sweating shoulders under the heavy leso and shooting near my ears were too much to bear. I writhed and squirmed as she stood behind me, trying to hold me in one place, until she decided to change tactics just so she could finish her near perfect job.
“Kaa chini,” she commanded. I thought she was telling me not to jump off the chair. Then comb was back on the fire, and she was pulling me off the chair and onto the cold cement floor. Now that was a relief from all this heat. But only temporary. Her hands felt rough and uncomfortably hot. She plonked herself on the chair and told me put my head between her legs. It was a strait-jacket like grip, those legs of hers.
“Mammy kaa straight nimaliza kazi! Usinisumbue!” The next thing was a searing white-hot pain at the nape. I swear I heard the sound of flesh crackling and the smell of human meat! She must have taken a hefty chunk out of my neck. The tingles were at their worst, the grip was suffocating. I was meeting the devil for sure. And then it was over. She released the headlock and I was free. I threw the leso off.
“Ah, ah Mummy, usionde sasa, kwanza tuchanue nywele.”
Oh, so there was that? I just wanted to run back home and forget the torture chamber I had been thrown into. I was not even sure I would stand on the upturned pail and tie up my puff tonight, or even on Sunday morning.
She carried the wooden chair into the saloon. I sat down, still under the leso, sweating and feeling anything but beautiful. She brought a small mirror, it had a crack running through it. I searched in my pocket and handed her the black thread to tie the puff. She continued combing backwards through my hair.
“Unaona vile uko mrembo! Lakini umechomeka sana, ukirudi home, umuambie Mama atie Vaseline.” She pronounced it Vazaline. I wondered why she was not taking the string.
“Here, tie my hair up.”
Then I looked in the mirror and nearly got the shock of my life. The hair was straight, yes, but that was just about it. It was so short that there was no way it could go into a puff, not even if I pulled and twisted it around and around the teeth of the wooden comb. My heart sank. I reached into my pocket, took out the 5 shillings and handed it to her without saying “Asante.”
I could feel the hot tears in my eyes as I ran all the way home, feeling that everybody could see the discomfort I had been through, that everybody could feel the heat I had been subjected to, that everyone could see how miserably my puff had failed, how ugly and uneven my hair was, and everybody could sense that I had an unsightly burn at the back of my neck.
Mummy was shocked to see me crying as I ran through the front door.
“What is it?”
“I look so ugly Mummy, my hair has refused to grow into the puff I wanted, and the woman burnt me with her comb.”
Then I dissolved into a hot flood of miserable tears as she held me and told me not to worry and that I was always going to be beautiful and that it would be okay.
I did not stand on the upturned pail in the bathroom mirror and twirl as I styled my puff.
Instead, I angrily washed out the hair that very evening, swearing that it would be the last time I would subject myself to such misery in the name of hair and beauty. Good pity party it was.
It would be a long time till I tried pulling a puff again.
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