I Am Not My Hair pt.2

I was happy with the result, no more running out of the rain like a cat. My hair was now permanently straight (at least until the afro hair roots started to grow again, we in the community call this re-growth, lol). They told me that I was eligible for another relaxer after 8 weeks minimum. Then the relaxer could only be applied to the roots of the hair; the new, tough afro hair in dire need of taming. The only downside, at the time, was that you had to fork out 40 to 50 quid every 2 months. Which prompted you to buy a damn good blow dryer and take the best care of your hair possible just to make that 40 quid worth it's while. I could go up to 4 months without a relaxer because my hair was surprisingly easy; it stayed moist, it grew easily and it didn't get split ends.

I also found out that the burning was subjective; my sister told me that she didn't feel a thing when the relaxer was in her hair. What the hell? Her scalp was like concrete while mine was silk chiffon. I wasted My mother wasted a few more hundred pounds in the next 2 years on me so I could sit in the salon and burn the shit out of my scalp on a regular basis.

I think it was Christmas of 2008 when I decided that relaxing was full of shit. I mean before that I had been dabbling with the idea but it was a lot of effort to get rid of the relaxed hair. Effort involving cutting most of it off, I didn't want to think too much about that. I went to the hair salon as usual and the relaxer burned the shit out of my scalp as usual... it was f**king painful, it left f**king scabs. And I thought 'why should I ever have to put myself through that shit?', that was it, my decision was made. I just wish I made it before I went in. I could've saved my self 50 quid and some hair, lol.

The funny thing about afro hair is how much it shrinks when you wash it, literally. The hair shrinks as a reaction to water, a bit similar to they way caucasian hair curls when wet but this is more extreme for black people. When I wash my hair it shrinks so much it reminds me of primary school haircut, the one I had when I was 'fresh off the boat' from Ghana and hardly spoke any English. It's really short, lol. Nowadays we have the godsend that is the blow dryer, I can go from freakishly short hair to cute short hair ^_^. But before that, when I was in primary school my mother would braid my hair.

She used to section my hair into 6 then apply a generous amount of blue magic to my hair. It's very greasy and very heavy but it works. As she applied the magic (lol) to my hair she would comb out all the knots with a Matador; the only comb that didn't break or bend in my hair. The thing that gets me about my hair is that even after conditioning it still has knots. It hurt then and it still hurts now, but I'm getting used to it all over again. She would do this to all 6 sections then the real work began. I would get black thread ready with a knot at the end; something thick and strong enough, something that wouldn't break easily. I would give it to my mother and she would wrap it around my hair. She used as much thread as needed until the whole section of hair, from the root to the tip, was wrapped in the thread. 

The best way I can describe the end result is that it looks like six sticks glued onto my head. It's really tight and I feel like I've had an instant facelift. Literally, I feel like my eyebrows are touching my hairline. Luckily I only have to wear it for a couple of days.

So, this is how I grow my hair now. Utilising the wisdom of my ancestors ^_^. The idea makes sense when you think about it. By pulling the hair and creating that tension it forces the root to grow to relieve the stress. You get used to it, although having said that I had to take an ibruprofen the last time my mother did my hair; one side of my face was throbbing like a son of a bitch, lol. The things a girl is willing to go through for her hair.

I Am Not My Hair pt.1

India Arie, Testimony: Vol 1 Life & Relationship. It's a great album, truly. I very rarely listen to the actual words of a song, mainly because they're all the same and sometimes because I get distracted by all the hoopla. But not with this, no, I Am Not My Hair made perfect sense, it was clear, she was clear. I even like Akon on it and I DON'T LIKE AKON; it's nothing personal, I just dislike his voice. She describes the numerous processes her hair went through, all because society decided that afro hair wasn't attractive. She starts off with a presser curl, then a Jheri Curl and finally a relaxer before her hair breaks off. Not a pretty sight, trust me. There's nothing worse than the day you realise that there's a whole chunk of your hair missing all because you liked you hairband a bit too much.

Having lived with an afro all my life because I'm black (applause), I know that there are just some things you can't do to it. It may look tough because it's so bushy but it's actually very brittle. DON'T put too much heat into it, DON'T apply more than one chemical process to it at a time and DO condition like your life depended on it.

Each generation has their own schtick, we don't know when my grandmother was born because for Ghanaians, in those days, there wasn't a need to know. I suspect they were busy trying to live past the age if 5. When we went back for her funeral I saw some pictures of her in her hay-day, she had thick, lush hair and because she was having a special picture taken she wore her hair straight. I asked my mum about it and she said that she had pressed her hair with one of those old school hot combs, probably the ones that you have to heat on the stove, then she curled it with metal rollers.

My mother was born in the late 40's. I found some baby pictures of her when we went to the funeral too, but she didn't think much of her hair back then. She remarked about how tough her hair was (has always been) and how her scalp was chronically sore for one reason or the other. By her late teens she'd started relaxing it because it was an easier way of maintain the highly sort after straight hair. She had few hairstyles in the coming decades, but they revolved around faux afro wigs like the lady in the black and white photo.

She started braiding my hair for me in '95 when my sister and I first came to live with her in England. I had a boys hair cut back then. A 1cm long No.1 haircut, because in Ghana, school girls have boy's hair cuts. Don't ask me why, it's one of those unanswered questions, like why Mariah Carey decided to get a boob job. I think I first relaxed my hair the summer before Sixth Form (College), I was tired of walking around with my afro hair. I didn't know what to do with it and I stood out, mainly because of the way I wore it but partly because I was the only student in my year group that had afro hair that long.

For those who don't know, a relaxer is a chemical treatment used to straighten obstinately curly hair. The first time at the salon was an eye-opener, the hairstylist distributed the relaxer from the root right to the ends because my hair was all afro (virgin hair). I think she took about 15 minutes to get the relaxer in, I don't know the right amount of time but I know now that it's best not to dilly-dally. I hadn't washed my hair for 2 weeks in anticipation; that's not as abnormal as it may seem, not washing afro hair for that long I mean. It began to tingle as soon as she was done applying the relaxer. Several minutes passed and that tingle started to spread enough that it become an itch I wanted to scratch, desperately. I resisted the urge because the hairstylist used gloves as she applied the relaxer and I'll be damned if I was gonna stick my, unprotected, hand in my itchy head. While I was busy thinking about not scratching, the itch started to burn ever so slightly. And then it grew, the burn I mean. It brought heat on top of heat. It spread like a wildfire on my scalp, increase in coverage and intensity simultaneously. It burned like hell.

This Christmas: Eve

This meal is important to me, not because it's Christmas Eve but because I haven't had it in a while. A Ghanaian classic of Waatse (pronounced Waatche), which is similar to the West Indian Rice and Peas, but we use black eyed beans instead. In Ghana it's eaten mid-morning because no one wants to be farting late into the night, lol. It's an unusual breakfast item but that's what happens when you live in a hot country. There's always and excess of chilli and salt, just the way I like it.

I remember my older sister used to buy it for breakfast when we lived in Ghana. It came packaged in a Banana leaf with extra Shito (not sure if I spelt that correctly ;0), because she loved the stuff. To her Shito is like Ketchup, lol.

Shito is made out of prawns generally, but Sprats today because that's what my mother could get her hands on. Any seafood would do basically. dried chilli peppers, oil (lots), onions, some salt or a Magi cube (I think it's made out of prawns compressed into a small concentrated bar). It is stewed until it turns black et voila, you have Shito, it's a peppery hot condiment. I can't eat too much of it personally, because I'm a light weight when it comes to peppery hot stuff. I'd rather have chilli in my food than not though. I always find myself nauseous when its not there.

My mum also fried some Sprats (those tiny fish that you can eat whole) and prawns. Apparently, in Ghana they eat shell and all. My memories of the motherland aren't as clear as the used to be. It has something to do with the benefits of the calcium… OK, that’s a lie. But it could be true.

Along with that you get some tomato sauce, and Gari which is Cassava I think. It's shredded then dry fried, I think my mum mixed it with some of the oil from the Shito. The thing about Gari is that it's rock hard, so whatever your going to eat it with you need to dampen it a bit. All that's left is the egg, which I don't quite understand the reason for, but who cares. It's delicious. Well, that was my Christmas Eve feast.

P.S. I hate Blogger's picture uploading system.

The problem with Ghana

I am Ghanaian who doesn't want to live in Ghana, ever. It's not due to any deep trauma I experienced during my childhood living there, it's due to the culture itself. Don't get me wrong I greatly appreciate the fact that there are no civil wars like most other African countries, but there's this mentality of 'I'll get to it when I get to it'. People do things in their own time when they want and when it benefits them, there's no sense of urgency.

There has always been this myth perpetuated about 'coloured people time', which is supposedly the clock that black people run on; it's generally 2-3 hours behind normal time. I'm black and I run on normal time, it's not that hard and nothing irritates me more than arriving late using that as an excuse. I don't mind when you arrive as long as it's the time that you told me you would arrive. A general piece of advice I'd give to anyone dealing with a chronically late person is to tell them to arrive before the actual gathering begins, tell them the party starts at 1pm when it starts at 3pm. I remember attending the reception for one of my many cousins' wedding ceremony, it started officially at 5pm but people only arrived at 7pm apparently they got lost during their 10 minute journey from the church to the reception venue. It's as if they want to make an entrance by arriving late like supermodels and celebrities do, but after you've seen these people on a dance floor you realize that they are anything but models or celebrities.

The wedding ceremony itself is drawn out as long as possible, why???...I have no idea but it's a waste of time. Church in Ghana generally is long, laborious and many a time involves receiving the spirits/Holy Ghost. I haven't been to church in a long time so I'm not too clear on the mechanics of it but I do know that they often fall down and speak in tongues when they receive the spirit. It's quite a sight.

Heaven forbid you don't have enough food at the reception, Ghanaians riot over things like that. The most well-known tribe in Ghana is the Akan which has several subdivisions within it, the one thing that holds them together is meat. Yes, I said MEAT.....beef, goat, chicken you name it they eat it; I think they associate it with wealth and good health so they gorge themselves on food in general but especially MEAT. At big Ghanaian events not a spot of green can be seen at the buffet table, who needs vegetables when you have: chicken wings, KFC style chicken, chicken kebabs - do you see a trend? - , beef kebabs, goat kebabs, fried fish, Jollof (a traditional rice dish), Waatche (rice and beans) etc. I should give credit to the side dishes that very faintly resemble salads but have had all vestiges associated with the healthy benefits of vegetables removed. The Neo-Ghanaian salad includes potato salad and coleslaw; containing extravagant amounts of mayonnaise and salad cream and as little vegetable as possible. You end up with this heap of cream coloured food, and there isn't a speck of green in sight unless you count the green pepper which is one of three vegetables. Don't get me wrong it is tasty but needs to be eaten in moderation, a word that is not utilized in Ghana.

The other problem with Ghana is the constant pay-offs, haggling and double talk. I'm used to saying what I mean and meaning what I say, anything else is annoying and futile. You can't get through customs without having to pay a little more attention to the customs officer; that means switching on your charm gene, smiling and batting your eye lashes all the while thinking what a f**kin' idiot the customs officer is. This is all in aid of getting them to process you quickly and thoroughly like they should already be doing as part of their sad little job in sad little Kotoka airport. In some cases the customs officer may even take some of the food your carrying; I know what your thinking 'that's not unreasonable, countries need to protect their environment', but do they need to protect it from canned food. My cousin experienced the hunger of a customs officer (a stupid, power saturated customs officer at that) who confiscated some of his food. Well he didn't even give a legitimate excuse so it wasn't a confiscation, it just happened that a can of kidney beans took his fancy for no other reason than it being exotic and free. I remember a couple of years ago when we missed our flight back from Accra, in any normal situation we would have waited for the next flight with free seats. In Ghana however, we paid someone off (a hefty sum I might add) and that was it we were on the next flight home.

My sister recently revealed to me that in her old age she would like to retire to Ghana, I was shocked because she felt the same way as I did about Ghana and was very vocal about it. I don't know were I'm gonna live in the future but Ghana definitely is not an option.