A Hairdo Adventure in Africa

“Do you think my hair would do that?” I said as I looked at the cornrow hairstyles of my new friends in Sierra Leone. Eyes lit up and bright smiles shined on the girls’ faces as they called the name, “Yeama!”

These Sierra Leonean orphans, twenty-five of them sharing a house, all have their roles. Umaru leads a devotional for them each morning at 5:30 a.m., Abu #1 (the teenage Abu) trims the hair of the younger boys with a special comb, and the teenage girls help prepare their meals of rice. At 7 a.m. the teenage boys lead a workout routine. Though they have no running water in the house, they do have a gym. It consists of things like rigged metal pipes with paint cans on the end sitting in a corner of the main room. Who is the in-house hairdresser? Yeama.

And Yeama I needed. After spending just one day in the fierce Sierra Leonean heat and humidity, this girl’s locks were frizzing out like never before. I admired the girls’ elaborately designed hairstyles and thought I might just need one myself. Not only did I want to identify with them and let them help me with something, I thought my hair could really use some work.

That afternoon after I finished teaching some drawing classes, Yeama appeared with a comb and I knew my time had come. She moved a chair to the dirt yard beside their house, and then the fun began. With John and Mariama on my lap and at least a dozen kids gathered around, we got started. I took my ponytail holder off and my hair seemed to puff out to three times its normal size. Soon two more girls, Hanumatu and Animata were on the job (I think Yeama must have signaled for backup!) They were dividing hair, and pulling here and there (ouch). I loved having my new friends so close and visiting with them as they worked.

 “She’s giving you a plant!” Animata said. Not only is she doing my hair, but she’s giving me a plant, too? I thought. Yeama chimed in. “With roses!” Seriously, roses? That sounded special, but I sure hadn’t seen anything close to roses since I had been in Sierra Leone, and especially not in their poor village. Where in the world will they find roses? I finally figured out the hairdo itself was called a plant and that the braids swooping upward into a ponytail on the top of my head were called roses.

I couldn’t help but smile the entire time as I watched the faces of the dozen or so children gathered around me. They were mesmerized, entertained, and amused by the whole process of this white woman getting a plant. Some of the little ones caught hairs as they fell from my head and sat and stroked the long, smooth strands.  Others leaned their elbows on a nearby ledge and rested their chins on their fists as they sat quietly watching. Still others leaned in on me in whatever places the hairdressers weren’t standing.

We talked about everything from the bothersome acne problems of the thirteen-year-old to stories in the Bible. We sang some songs together, too. The praise songs were special, and they were impressed that I also knew some Justin Bieber songs. How they knew his songs I have no idea – they live in a primitive village in a tin home without electronics (nor electricity and running water, for that matter). As the sun lowered toward the horizon, we got a break from the scorching heat and an almost-cool breeze blew. Animata kept saying over and over again, “So beautiful, so beautiful, Auntie Brenna!” But, I didn’t realized just how awesome my hair looked until the end of that one-and-a-half hour session when the teenage girls broke out in the song “African Queen”!

 About ten minutes before they were done, John got down from my lap and ran off. He returned, quietly leaning on my side with my bright pink backpack on his lap and my large water bottle in his hand, one of the many times he looked out for me and carried my things for me. As the children all walked me back to the Brockelman’s home at sunset, some holding my hands and others happily flitting around me, I couldn’t imagine a place I would rather be at that moment.

 I kept my plant for a week. Through Brussels, Belgium; Chicago, Illinois, then back to Dallas. I guess I felt it was one way I could bring home with me a little bit of Yeama and my new friends. I wish they could have seen my hair the day it came out of the plant. I persuaded Micah to take the first shift. He worked undoing braids on the back for 30 minutes, and finally begged off the job by reminding me he had piano practicing to do. My ten-year-old Karis and her friends Kate, Bella and Meadow finished the job, leaving me with a hairdo bigger than the 1980’s Diana Ross had ever dreamed of.

 I guess it’s only appropriate that I would end this blog with a Diana Ross song dedication for my new friends – her #1 hit “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.”

It’s a tiresome 36-hour travel journey to you by planes, bus and boat, my new Sierra Leonean friends. But I want you to know that, Lord willing, there ain’t no mountain high enough, ain’t no valley low enough, ain’t no river wide enough to keep me away from you!