Hair Palava: Everyone go still collect

 

I have always told my friends that on a good day, I will tell them a story. They often tell me that my good days never come. I am about to prove them wrong, because today is a good day. And I will tell a personal story. 

If you know me, you would know that I don’t care—mostly. So I do not often see the need to do my hair, especially if I do not intend to go out in a long while. Not when I have wigs. Why else do I spend all my money on it? Or stress over taming the manes of my virgin hair if I could have just relaxed it for a headache-less combing. It never made sense to the rest of my family—well, except my father who was just too happy that I won't disturb him for hair money again.  It is on one of such times that my family had prayed, pleaded and threatened. I decided to be less of a disgrace—and a child of peace—and went to the market to buy attachments for my hair. 

Since I was going to market, the family saw no need to waste money on transport money twice. They gave me a list of all the home needs and smiled in a way that I usually do when I asked them for something. Pay back time! But the Lord said let there be Peace. God forbid that I disrupt it. So I took it and left. 

Photo Credit: Leighann Blackwood from Unsplash 

It was a typical market day. By that, I mean that the sellers drew and pulled me. If you have gone to main market, you will have an idea of what I mean. If you have not, I hope you never have to. Take my advice and stay back. For me, it was already too late. I braced myself for my martyrdom. By the time, I was done with the list, I was tired and completely drawn out. I dared not go home without the hair attachments. So I answered the call of one of the first shops on the hair lane (goods are sold section by section, lane by lane). The day ended well. Everyone was happy. 

My tale of woe began the day after, when I went to the salon to get my  hair done. I left early. I wanted to have a head start before other customers start coming. The older women are the worst. They will come later and say, "Ada, ka m just kpaa all back."

Others are less direct. "Your hair is fine o. And full. What do you use on it? Nothing? Wow! I will do anything to have your hair."

I smile. Open gateway. 

"Nne, let me just wash my hair nah. It will be sharp sharp. I will not waste your time."

I hate dilemmas.  If I say No. It will be, "nwa onye bu ihe a? (whose child is this?)  Lacks compassion. Disrespectful. Is this how you treat your mother at home? Imana m muru onye muru onye muru gi? (Do you know I am of age to birth who birthed you?)" If I say Yes. I will add buttocks pain, back pain and it-is-paining-me-all-over-my-body pain to my incoming scalp pain. Yes, beauty is pain. A complete torture. Whichever, I would have spent precious time and energy either hurrying them or explaining subtly and a little much why a young girl will not acquiesce to the wishes of an older woman, especially over something this little. Not when she has no child waiting for her at home. One of the mottos I live by is: if it is avoidable, avoid it. This one is. So I set out early, very early. As a not-so-early riser, you see why I hesitate to do my hair. Because when I do, I must open your shop. Hopefully, you would have gone halfway before other customers come. At the very least, beyond fishing the attachment. Imagine my surprise when—after carefully parting my hair into numerous sections—the woman told me that my attachment was fake. 

Photo Credit: Maureen from Unsplash

"Aunty, isi gini?" I asked, unable to believe my ears. 

She told me again, "your attachment is fake. I cannot use it."

"Ahh! Which one is fake again, aunty? I am sure it's not that bad. Just put it like that." She was already shaking her head. I continued, "Sheey it is my head. Just put it like that. I do not mind"

"I do," she said. ‘It will look bad on my handiwork.’ And as if plaiting hair is a religion, she said it is against her faith to plait my hair with the attachment. She explained: it would be a waste of my money. The braids won't last beyond a week. Two, at most. I will have to loosen it. And withstand the torture at home at again. After, of course, the torture of loosening it. Triple torture. She said to go back to the market and exchange it for the original. Market ke?! How will I go back to the market? I had not even had breakfast. They will drag me to death before I find the shop I bought it in (which I barely remembered, by the way). She only shrugged her shoulders. Your problem. 

I carried my parted hair and made out for the market. The sellers welcomed me well. "Customer! How are you? Is this a new hairstyle? E fine o." It is only when I told them why I came that they stopped smiling. They only listened. "So you got scammed? Oso afia?" They were almost sympathetic. "You had to come back? Eiyaa. From afar? Ndo o." They were even helpful—almost. "The person that sold it to you is not around." My world was fast crashing. My body, even faster. I wished I ate before leaving for the market. "What should I do?" I asked. 

"Go home. Now you know better."

Home? I shuddered. "When will he (the seller) come?"

"Where is your receipt?"

I turned my head to the voice. "Receipt ke?"

"That sheet of paper that shows your evidence of payment," he answered.

 

Of course I know what a receipt is. Who gives receipt in main market kwanu? A whole West Africa’s largest market. Who has that kind of time? "Where is the seller? Let him coman identify me."

"Can he? Do you know how many sales we make in a day? You are just one of many."

"Where is he?"

"We don’t know."

Another one came closer. A guy. He whispered, "they won’t tell you but I don’t think he will come in today."

"I will wait out my luck."

"In that case, have a seat. It will make your wait bearable." 

How kind of him, I thought. I was grateful. It was a long wait. And the sun wasn't kind. I didn't want to press my phone the way GenZs usually kill time. I needed to stay alert. Both to keep an eye for the guy that sold it to me and for the phone itself. I have heard tales of this place. How you could hold your phone in a minute and not have it in the next. I have never been out alone this long, even when I did, my voyage stopped at the foodstuffs section. Even then, the advice was same: hide your phone. Remember, if you can avoid it, avoid it. So I stayed alert, phoneless. I let the kind guy engage me. He asked me what happened. I told him how this guy beckoned me to his shop, this shop, and sold the hair attachments to me at a cheaper price. I, proud of my ever growing bargaining skills, did not suspect a thing. He sighed as he told me that the guy did not have a shop there. He is what they call oso afia. They can sell for more and pocket the gain. Or sell for less if they are fake, like in my case. The originals were sold at highly inflated prices while the cheap knock offs were sold at discounted prices of the original to avoid suspicion. He looked at me and perhaps also saw, that I am young, naive…believing. He gave me tips on how to avoid them. The to-dos and not-to-dos of the market. Others chimed in here and there. I decided I liked them. I let them indulge me and tell me stories about their lives.  They teased me about my parted hair. I opened up and laughed. 

After roughly three hours of waiting, the supposed guy walked in. I jumped up. And paused. It turned out that the guy was a girl after all, a tom boy. I ran to her and narrated my tale, in quick short breaths and my mission to exchange them in quicker shorter breaths. She sympathized with me. She said I must have fallen victim to her twin brother’s scam. When I find him, I should tell him she has been looking for him. My ears twinged. Shey you dey whine me? How do you say ‘ike gwuru oto gwu m’ in English? I know I dared come to the market with salon-parted hair but people have looked worse, so why do you have to take me for a fool? 

She walked away. I followed her. She walked faster. I walked faster. I began to run. I feared I wouldn’t find my way back but not more than I feared going home without the attachments. What will I tell them at home? That I came to the market and got scammed? The same market I walked as a child? The shame of it? Unbearable. And because I am better at numbing pain than at expressing it, I will laugh it out as a joke. They will never know how much it hurts until my aunts use it as a pointer in one of their many good, well-intentioned advice sessions. It usually goes like this: ‘make sure the seller is the real owner. Don't follow those people walking about looking for customers. They will cheat you. Don't believe me? Ask Ogonna nah. She will tell you. They ask me. And I will turn sour. The problem with being introspective is that you tend to overthink. It happens so fast, in seconds, that not even this small customer-seller race can catch up. She slowed when she could not get rid of me, and raised alarm. I stilled in shock. I blinked once, twice, thrice, trying to understand what was happening. People gathered and she began her tale. How I have been following and harassing her. How she has been explaining to me patiently that she didn't make the sale. How I had persisted. The accusation in my pointed finger. Her innocence. Her listeners listened. They shook their heads in disbelief and looked at me in horror. How could I have been this insensitive? And do this cruel thing? 

I want to tell you that I shook and raged. How pathetic and unbelievable the story sounded. Instead, I will tell you how I let their words sink. How bad I felt as I contemplated the possibilities. Even I hated accusations. I felt my helplessness wash over me. I began to see the end of the road. Is this not the part in films where something happens and saves the main character? Why, instead of my genie, do I see my naivety? The weight of the scam hung over me. I thought of home. And let the first tear slip. 

It was an old man that stepped up for me. He said he is a father with a conscience, and had passed the age of deceit. He held my hand and told me to follow her. She had no twin. I was being scammed. I searched for her in the crowd. She had vanished. I couldn't even find my way back. I told the man that I was lost. He lent me his apprentice to show me the way. The apprentice spoke to me as we went. He told me that it is the way of the market. The way of survival. And that they were all in cahoots. It is an unspoken rule to cover for your brother. He disappeared before I asked more. But not before pointing out the shop to me. Not before I saw her silhouette walk in. I followed. I met her whispering in the kind man’s ear. She left as soon as I came in. The kind man was no longer kind. He grudgingly pulled out a bag and exchanged the attachments for me. He mumbled a few things about people that won't let him be rich. It is easier to end his character this way because telling you of how he tried to find out where I lived just so he can gauge my father's wealth still makes my blood boil. According to him, since I looked well and spoke well, I likely lived well in those big places only the rich could afford. Couldn't I have just bought another one and let this one go? I didn't say much. I was too tired. I steadied myself and left the market nursing my headaches. 

By the time the woman started making my hair at sunset, I had sworn I would cut my hair. Why not now, you ask? I had suffered too much to let it waste. And because salons will always be salons, I listened to the older women ramble about oso afia. Why I should never patronize them. How to not look like JJC. How this and that. Each ending with her super anti-scam skills. I know they were probably being kind. I didn't blame them, not even the hairdresser for sharing. But it is not all pain that you share. And most, you rather not have people reminding you of them, rubbing it in like salt to a wound. It was nightfall when we began the hot water compressment; I let the pain sip through without flinching. They said I was strong. Somehow, it made me feel less vulnerable. A makeup for my naivety. There was no need to tell them that I numb when I hurt. And that I numb easily. I rather be called strong. By the time I got home, my legs hurt, my heart ached and my head was on fire. Even my numbness had numbed. It was there, in my room, snug under the warmth of my mother's wrapper,  that I let myself feel. I cried and cried. Then, I cried because I was crying. It didn't make sense. It was supposed to be a petty thing. A random day in the day of a hustling market man. Yet, I had never felt so raw. So vulnerable. Like I had been opened up and gutted. No. Like they opened my brain and used it. There, in the middle of market men who learnt how to count money long before my mother brought home my first abacus, I had never felt more stupid, and helpless.  But I am strong so there is no need to tell the world of how I wrapped my mother's wrapper tight and hugged myself even tighter and swore off attachments. Or that I still hate markets. And that not even the ‘so you're this fine’ teases after plaiting a new hairdo, soothed my pain. 

To every Rose that grew from Concrete; Blossom! 

P.S: This one is for Munachimso, my best friend and the first person I ever told this story. She listened like it was a good story. It became one. 

It is for my sister for always being there at every significant moment of my life, high and low, and living it with me.