Hair in Mali

(see “Hair in Mali” album here: http://picasaweb.google.com/veroniquelporter/HairInMali# )

Surprisingly my hair has been thriving in Mali. Despite the fact I’m a little protein deficit, which makes my hair lose its spring a little, my fro has lots of definition and its growing. Malians hate my fro. They think its unkempt, and they’d much rather I get it braided, like in simple French braids, or at least keep it covered. I found this out when I got to country and mostly kept in fro under wraps (literally- ha, ha). After rocking the purple braids for a month and a half, I told the villagers I was wearing my hair out for two weeks. It needed to air out, but more importantly, I wanted them to see that with good care,; their hair could have definition and look good without braids, weaves or wraps all the time. Yeah, they weren’t having that. I got asked by people in my concession when I was going out where my head wrap was. I replied that it was in my house. Married women keep their hair covered out of respect for their husbands. I weaseled out of that one since I wasn’t married. My old homologue asked me what was going in with my hair. He told me there’s a salon in town he could take me to. I was sitting with him and his friend at the time and I asked ‘what’s wrong with my hair? I like wearing it like this… In the states, women wear their hair like this…Is it ugly?’ This is a trick question because technically it’d be rude for them to say yes ;-) My old homologue said no, its pretty, but his friend quickly said “you need to get it braided… you live in Mali so you should do what the women do.” I told him of my two week plan and said after that period I’d get it braided. He confirmed that it’d be only two weeks and then agreed that if it was only two weeks, it’d be ok.
My new homologue’s co-spouse didn’t fall for the pretty/ugly question. Instead she said outright that I needed to get it braided immediately. Anything women in village, who gives me flack all the time, responded to the trick question by saying it ugly and I needed to get it braided. Then every other time I saw her, she asked when I was going to braid my hair.
There’s a women in my village that I saw braiding and she did good work that wasn’t that tight. My two weeks had become three weeks and I told her I wanted braids like those she did. During the fourth week of frodom, she braided my hair. Right now, I have long, long, itty, bitty twists that took 15 hours over the course of four days. In the States, these braids would be upwards of $200. Here in Mali, it cost about $7, hair and labor.
It’s not purple, but that’s only because the boutiqui only had black or blond. Yeah, not going blond anytime soon.