As Free As My Hair

As some of you already know, I’ve gone through some physical changes recently.  It all started when I was 13 and wanted to shave my head.  Oh man, the awkward years…so glad those are over! (?)  Seriously, the idea never left my mind.  What would I look like bald?  Or at least with really, really short hair?  But the time was never right…until now!!  Actually, I considered shaving my head before coming to Africa, but I didn’t know how I would be perceived, and my reputation as a sane, capable, respectable person is far too important for my 2 years here to risk it like that.  So I settled for getting a super short pixie cut.

But still, I couldn’t get past the idea.  When I arrived in Mali, I asked about shaving my head, and was basically told not to do it; that I would look like a boy.  So I let my hair grow out, get trimmed, and grow out again.  But right before I moved to site, my hair was trimmed a second time and cut quite short, so when I moved into my new village, everyone knew I had short hair.  Not that it mattered much, I’ve worn a headscarf nearly everyday in Mali since March; not because I have to but because I choose to.

But by early June, I was itching to get rid of my hair, and when I went into San, 2 girls from another region had both recently cut their hair: one into a mohawk and the other into a close buzz.  I figured, hey, they can do it!  I’m going to do it too!  So that’s when the first cut happened: The Mohawk.

Then later that night we added the lightning bolts.

But by the next day I was ready to get rid of all the excess hair.  (Note that this was all done with just scissors, except for the lightning bolts in which a beard trimmer was used.  Impressive, no?)

I returned to village and refused to take off my scarf, even though somehow everyone knew I’d cut my hair short!  I swear, sometimes Malians are magic.

A week later I went to Bamako for 2 weeks of In-Service Training.  While in Bko, the Kennedy Girls started a revolution: a revolution of girls with short hair!!  At the end of 2 nights, we had some pretty great cuts.

 

So my lightning bolts grew out, I had a trim with real clippers, and my hair started to grow out again.  Fed up with “all this hair!” a month later I decided to go all the way: straight-razor shaved bald.

Again, I refused to take my scarf off in village, and again, they all knew I’d shaved off all my hair!  But after 6 days I couldn’t take it anymore; I was home at night with the kids and my head itched, so I took off my scarf with just the kids there…and they went ballistic!  They stroked my 6-day stubble for half an hour.

These days I wear a scarf as usual throughout the day, or when I leave my compound on "official business," but I almost always have my head bare at home or with friends, and I have no problem with showing people my hair or taking off my scarf to retie it or use the material for another purpose while out in village.  The kids continue to play with my hair and tell me how awesome it is, and I’ve decided to try and grow it out so they can play with my hair even more!