The afternoon of Sionna's birthday arrived and with it, the urge for straight hair. So we ventured all the way to Itaewon in search of a "proper" straightening. After wandering around and asking a few African women for their recommendations, we ended up at "Ethiopian Row" (as Sionna calls it) where Si found a nice Nigerian to do the job for a good price. Si felt comfortable at the shop as it was the same shop where Paulina had previously connected with her inner-blackness and bought nice black-spiral weave.
An hour passed by and the Nigerian woman thought she was finished. I wish you could have seen the look of disgust on not only Si's face but on the faces of Paulina and myself as her "do" fell way under par. The woman continued to work on what became known as the "beast" for another hour, continuously burning Si's scalp and adding ghetto grease. As the end of hour two drew near, I'm afraid the Nigerian was unsuccessful at taming the "beast". On the bright side, the three of us made friends with a nice girl named Juliet from Uganda who was getting her hair re-braided!
We left the shop and Si felt disappointed with the final look. Paulie and I insisted we could fix it but Si wasn't having it. Later on that evening, or should I say the next morning, I recall Si talking with her mother on the phone from the taxi saying, "All I had today was a schwarma and a hack job from a Nigerian."
Who would have thought a black woman couldn't do a fellow black girl's hair? Things aren't always what they seem...
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