Guinea: "Get Your Hair Did" - Conakry Style!

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve spent a lot of time speaking with women to understand their experiences and how they influence their health and well-being. They’ve shared of all sorts of challenges – ranging from circumcision and forced marriages to finding a suitable husband or making sure they look “jolie.” Of the many challenges shared, I found some I could personally relate to. The one I want to share with you today – the one that makes me both smile and, sometimes cringe, and always seems to come up no matter where in the world I am – is our desire, as women, to look a certain way. And sometimes, that starts with hair…

Whether I’m in Michigan, or Boston, or 4000 miles away on the African continent, getting my hair done is always an adventure. I have find someone who can do the style I like, I have to find a day that I can go to do it, I have to explain it in a language that could be understood, and whether in the U.S. or here in Conakry, I have to negotiate the price! The first time I did my hair here in Conkary, I had two women come to the house. We had to wander around my neighborhood, trying to find all the items that we needed, and then I had to just do one of the two styles they were familiar with since that’s what they were skilled at doing. So the second time, I decided to venture out into the neighborhood to see if I might have better luck on my own. I found a little salon – an unassuming little shop not wider than a king-size bed. There were two women in there, watching some dramatic Telenovela. There was a single mirror, no sink, and I was beginning to wonder what this experience would bring.  

“Bonjour,” I said to the women, as we began the customary greetings of asking how each other and our families were doing. “Can you do these styles for my hair?”

“Of course,” they said, and they got right to work.

They took out my braids, a process that would have taken me several hours on my own. They washed my hair, complete with a little scalp massage, using a portable hair washing contraption and heating up a bucket of water. They went searching the neighborhood to buy the necessary hair products to do the style I wanted. And then we sat for the next four hours together, as I learned little bits of the local language of sousou and talked about their lives, while they “tressed” my hair again.

Before: Time to take out the braids...

During: The most ingenious portable hair
washing contraption!

After: Voila!

A few things stuck out to me as I sat in the little wooden chair in this salon. First, I thought how ingenious the women were, learning a trade as a way of making money when times were hard. Sometimes, I feel that as a member of the middle-class and of a Western society, I find it easier to pay for something like getting my hair done (because I can afford to), rather than learning how to do it myself, and I truly valued their spirit and self-reliance. Second, I was amazed how much could be done with so little. My hair could be scrubbed clean without a traditional sink. A work of art (which I believe hair can be) could materialize from a shop the size of some peoples’ closets.

And finally, I was yet again struck by the hardships that some women face here. Both women were quite young, certainly not older than me, and yet they each had a child – one 6 years old, one 8 years old. They were never married, received no help from the children’s fathers, and had to do “everything,” one woman described, to survive when her parents had – for one year – thrown her out of the house after the pregnancy. When I asked if I could buy a snack nearby, they said, “In this neighborhood? No. It’s only expensive restaurants. We haven’t eaten all day.” And so they sat in a salon from morning to night – one of the women had to rush out after 9 pm to give a client a massage (which the salon also offers) – and I’m sure she couldn’t have reached home before 11 pm or later.

Overall, “Get your hair did- Conakry-style” was a success, and I’ve found a hairdresser for my next trip back to Guinea. And I left with yet another reminder that being a woman never seems to be easy.