Padded extensions
It’s always a joy coming your way. Trust your week has gone well. Mine has been interesting and eventful; my lab test proved positive. I am so excited. Oh, I wish I had time to tell you about it all, but I lack space.
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By the way, before I spin the day’s yarn, let me fulfill a promise I made to two fans who left messages in my inbox. Actually they expressed their opinions of the sanitary towels to be distributed to the needy students, and wanted their opinions to be published:
“Antie Ablah, I think the distribution of the pads is a great idea. But those who do the distribution should endeavour to teach the girls how to use the pads, otherwise, some of the girls will wash them after use. A lady in our house, right here in Accra, who used a diaper for the first time on her new born baby, washed the diaper and hanged it out to dry on our drying line. The whole thing looked very horrible.
“I had early on seen her carefully washing the thing in a bucket near the standpipe on our compound, and I kept wondering why she was using so much care. Little did I know she was actually embarking on a recycling procedure? I was very happy to be around that day to correct her. Yes, she needed to know it was a disposable item. Please the girls would also need to be educated on the use of the towels. Thank you”.
The second mail reads: “Ablah, in our days, we used to wear buwe during menstruation. When I started having my periods at age 15, my mother was very excited that I had finally entered womanhood. She had been expecting this rite of passage to have occurred about three years earlier.
“Ablah, she actually donated one of her dedicated cover cloths, the Kwadu Shao patterned one which was given to her as a present by my father, and which she cherished so much, to be cut up and used as my pad. She would tie a cord made from the fabric of one of her slits around my waist, and pass a carefully folded but long piece of the absorbent cloth into widths my tiny thighs could hold, from the front of the cord all the way backward beneath my flow area, to my behind. The cord, of course, was the fastener.
“After that, I would wear a panty on the traditional pad and leave for school. Mind you, I didn’t have tight panties at the time, I only wore them in the name of having worn an underwear. So I learnt how to sit well in class at an early age. I couldn’t think of any of my mates or teachers see me sitting carelessly at all.
Before leaving for school, my mother would give me a spare folded cloth to change the first with, should the flow be heavy, and then give me a rubber bag to tie-in the changed one for washing when I got home. Woe unto me anytime she failed to fasten the cloth properly to the cord – huh, the “dangling modifier” would fall off without my notice, leaving me with a messed up uniform which sent me packing home before the break time or closing bell rang.
It’s my hope and prayer that the girls are supplied with tighter panties to hold in place the sanitary pads. Or at least, their parents should be admonished to get them fitting underwear to hold the sanitary towels in place otherwise your guess is as good as mine.”
Okay, now that I’m fulfilling my promise to Jane Tawiah and Suzanne Appiah, the mailers, I hope I can go ahead with my story for the day. Brazilian Hair! Hmm, my hairdresser’s friend who went to watch the World Cup, and was supposed to bring back a baggage of Brazilian hair to sell has failed us.
Lydia, my hairdresser, had convinced me enough to save towards packets of the hair. “Antie Ablah, you need to change your outlook a bit. You are too old school. You should consider hair extensions instead of this rasta rasta you’ve done over these many years”, she said to me. After much consideration of her statement, I thought it would be a good idea to give Obodai a new look.
Although on the face of the saloon sheets my finances wouldn’t support fully the required packets of hair, I wanted to look differently prettier. So I managed to mobilise GH¢500 for Lydia, to pay the rest in installments upon the goods’ arrival. Estimated cost of the hair was GH¢1,200.
According to my hairdresser the type she had asked to be bought cost GH¢850 a few months ago, but the dollar hikes had warranted the present price. Hmm and every little while, pondering over my fashion decision, I would wonder how coping with such long bulky hair in the sweltering sun would feel like.
Anxious clients alike, about four of us in number, were all waiting to glue, clip, or sew the waist length hair onto our heads. But we were so disappointed when different phone calls to our beauty consultant disclosed that the World Cup patriot brought neither strand nor tress of the expected beauty enhancer to Ghana. According to Lydia, “she said there is nothing like Brazilian Hair extensions in Brazil”.
Truly, the news surprised me. Was it really the truth? What did she mean by there was nothing like Brazilian Hair in Brazil? Apparently, the Brazilians themselves, I hear, didn’t know anything like Brazilian weave-on existed. Strange, isn’t it? I hear most of what we call Brazilian hair here is either from India, Malaysia, Mongolia etc.
Let’s talk a bit more about Brazilian hair next week. I am really surprised.