Haircuts and shoe shines

My hair was getting in my eyes. I hate that. It usually gets to a point where I can't stand it any more so I call Carmen and he gets me for a haircut. He's been cutting my hair for almost 30 years. I meant to get a haircut right before I left the states, but things were pretty crazy and I never got that far. When I left my hair was marginally tolerable. By the time I had been here a month, it was beyond tolerable. I was told that the barber in the trading center could cut it.

Last week I really couldn't take it any more so I walked on down to the stall where he has his shop. I didn't see him so I went over to another shop where I had met the young woman who recommended the barber. She went to the his shop and woke him up. He was taking a mid-day nap since he didn't have any customers. This made me a bit anxious, but hey, I really, really needed a haircut. Besides, hair grows, right? Even a bad haircut doesn't last forever.

I was reassured when he doused the clippers in disinfectant. At least, I assume the purple stuff he pored over the clippers was disinfectant. He started cutting and I figured this wasn't going to be too bad. Of course, I'm blind as a bat without my glasses (and without the bat's sonar) so I really couldn't see much of what he was doing. When I put my glasses back on it still didn't look so bad. I paid my 2000 Ush ($1.25) and went home.

When I looked in the bathroom mirror at home and had a chance to check it out from several angles, I had a different impression. At the crown of my head--top back--it's cut quite short. Think longish crew cut. The sides were too long. Fortunately, I've spent years watching Carmen--however blurred--cut my hair. I brought a hair scissors along, a last minute purchase, just in case--of what I didn't know. Anyway, I trimmed and shaped until it's fairly respectable, as long as you don't look at the top back.

Like I said, hair grows.

Now, about shoe shines.

Last week we had the day off for the Muslim holy day of Idi Al-Fitir, the celebration that ends the month of fasting for Ramadan. Uganda handles religious pluralism by celebrating everyone's major holidays. Cool, I'm happy for the Muslims. I was even happier to have a free day with Bry'Chell around.

Bry'Chell had told me about a store that was nice--nice by Ugandan standards is nothing major. In this case it meant she could buy a Snickers bar. Anyway, I wanted to see it, so we walked down and found it. It was nice--clean, bright and organized. However, they were out of Snickers bars.

I looked around and found a few things that we needed. Among other things I found black Kiwi shoe polish and a small shoe shine brush. As I've mentioned before, things get really dusty around here--dirt roads and all. Anyway, I asked Bry'Chell if she would be interested in the polish and brush. She was pretty excited and said that, yes, she did need them. Carol, who walks to school with her in the morning had polished her shoes a couple of times because they didn't look nice. (Why did she wait until now to tell me?) Now I'm feeling like an irresponsible parent-type person. I bought the stuff and we came home.

Bry'Chell has been polishing her shoes almost daily. Today I went to Kampala and bought (among other things) a piece of flannel so she can put a nice finish on them. She seems surprised that I know how to polish shoes. I told her that my dad taught me how to use a shoe shine brush and flannel cloth to polish shoes. She was more impressed with Dad than with me.

I'm getting flashes of approaching adolescence. When Bry'Chell was nine, I was brilliant. I knew how to do all kinds of cool stuff. She was always excited to learn something new. Now that she's almost 13, my abilities have shrunken considerably. She can just about tolerate being around me. It's seldom that I have anything interesting to bring to the table, but occasionally I might have a useful tidbit of knowledge. Oh well. She still sleeps with her American Girl doll, Jasmine, and her stuffed Snow Leopard.

Shining shoes is just one little Ugandan thing she has picked up. In the past three years her school shoes never saw polish. Now they're so shiny you can just about see yourself in them.

Because of the dust, she also carries around a handkerchief to dust off her seat before she sits down. I just sit down and take my chances. Maybe I'll pick up that habit, but I doubt it.

I have a new internet connection that I can use from home. I'll write more about that next time I sign on because it's past my bedtime and I start teaching tomorrow.