In the last year or so the simple task of getting a haircut has caused an unerring increase in the rapidity of my heartbeat. When letting someone loose on your mop without a good degree of fluency with their language you have to be pretty philosophical, the bottom line being “it will always grow again”.

Experiences in the last 15 months have included a haircut duet with Chris Jones in Maia shopping mall in Porto, where we thought going in pairs for safety was a good move. In what can only be described as an “express hairdressers” two black clad ladies swooped down, practiced their broken English on us whilst joking with each other in Portuguese and whizzed around with the scissors and clippers. The interesting finale was that they washed our hair afterwards and packed us off in about 15 minutes. Annie and Elaine had gone for a quiet coffee and were disappointed by our early return; I think they were still waiting for the coffees to cool to a drinkable temperature.

Typical Porto Street

A further Portuguese experience involved a very quiet traditional barbers shop on an old street in Porto. By this time 11 weeks of language study had lifted my language skills to almost staggering levels, as long as the conversation followed the pattern “Where do you live? How many children do you have? Why are you in Portugal?”  The young barber wore a classic white singlet with an assortment of suitable implements in the pockets and had greased hair on top of a swarthy thin face with “designer stubble”. The spectacle was watched by an old man in a brown coat who seemed to be there to sweep up the debris. So conversation was enjoined with the young barber repeating to the old man his interpretation of my broken Portuguese. He kindly kept to safe territory so my vocabulary was not embarrassed too much.  When the news broke that tomorrow I was off to Mozambique to try out my language skills on the Africans there was a short period of concerned conversation between my helpers. The barber did an extremely thorough job, removing hair with specialist implements from various orifices with little prior explanation apart from a brief gesture. I came away happy with the result, and pleased with my lengthy Portuguese conversational skills.

Next follows what I would describe as the Missionary Cut. We have some good friends who live close to Nelspruit which is the nearest South African town to Mozambique. Every 3 months we have had to leave Mozambique as we have 90 day multi-entry visas which are valid until December. So after a trip which involves 4 hours in the Landrover to Nampula, a flight down to Beira and then another further south to the capital Maputo we take a double-decker bus across the border on a 5 hour run to down-town Nelspruit. The border crossing is chaotic and confusing and it takes about an hour to get stamped out of Mozambique and stamped into South Africa. Our friend Cathy who works as a home delivery midwife and also works at the Africa School of Missions  picks us up and negotiates her way out of town through all the major roadworks, inspired by the forthcoming 2010 World Cup in South Africa. We arrive at the Mercy Air base where Cathy and her husband Paul live, driving down next to the air-strip to reach a cluster of hangers and houses perched on an outcrop set amongst a beautiful landscape.

Mercy air

Paul flies for Mercy Air and is also an outdoor pursuits expert and we first met them when we lived in Lesotho from 1994 to 96. Their son Matthew is the same age as our son Christopher and they soon became best mates at school.  Cathy used to cut my hair on the veranda of their house in Maseru and having enjoyed cooking in a black plastic dustbin liner I presented her with a pukka hair dressing cape. We’d always have a nice chat and it was a great way to catch up. So the trip to Mercy Air (or is that Mercy Hair?) had to involve the obligatory hair cut under the well travelled hair dressing cape. Comments about how my hair had changed in the last 12 years included “It’s gone quite grey hasn’t it?” and other observations using vocabulary like “receding”.  Anyway I’m very grateful for their friendship, willingness to poke fun at me, and their commitment to Africa serving in such a professional and caring manner.

Cathy and Paul

The last hairdressing experience and obviously most recent involves my first ever haircut by an African. Was this fool-hardy you may be asking yourself, as we are part of a community of 4 white people and have unusually straight hair (from an African perspective). The hairdressers’ is definitely a colonial hang over that looks very out of place in the regular Angoche context. It has two large barbers’ chairs, perched on chrome pedestals and upholstered in marbled red plastic. The foot rest is missing so it’s necessary to rest your feet on the obsolete projecting spokes. The cape comprises a small apron in a bright printed fabric, and the equipment a large pair of drapers’ scissors with tortoise-shell plastic handles, showing a certain amount of corrosion on the blades. My preferred option would have been the clippers but the skilled operator of this equipment has not shown up for the last 3 days, so my young hairdresser insists that the scissor look will look “bonita”.

The 'salon'

After being sprayed with water from an old window cleaning fluid bottle, a small white plastic comb is employed with the scissors to produce what can be described as a “single step effect”. This is achieved with a very slow “sniiiiiip” following a line just above the ears. Negotiation around the ears proves to be problematic with such a large pair of scissors and amusement turns to trepidation as my left ear suffers injury, only arrested by a yelp of pain. This is all taken in young Giselle’s stride as she produces cotton wool and bright orange Savlon antiseptic fluid to clean the wound, allowing me to assist by holding the bottle whilst she dabs away saying “sorri, sorri”. All of this might not seem too wayward, but there is another factor you have to be aware of.  The hairdressers’ has a large front window and is located in one of the busier streets of Angoche. The exceptional sight of a “branco” having his hair cut in the large chair close to the front window attracts undue interest in the populace. In quick succession three of my friends appear at the open door and seem to find the whole episode extremely entertaining. They exchange some concerned frowns and converse with Giselle in a certain degree of amusement. As the event draws to a close they kindly wait outside for a chat, and when it comes to pay I have to nip out to ask Pimo for some change to my 100 meticais note. As I shake off the redundant hair Giselle stands back to admire her handiwork waving her scissors and proclaims a satisfied “bonita”. My cap proves to be particularly useful today as I walk home for Annie’s verdict.

Giselle

So maybe you’d like to know how much these haircuts cost?

• Portuguese barbershop -  the best cut and cost £8 including all orifices
• Mercy Hair – a bottle of South African red wine, shared over dinner
• Giselle – 30 pence and a sore ear

Latest news! The local American Peace Corp have offered to come to the rescue. Our two friends Erin and Alexi have inspected the damage and the Iowa and Chicago Joint Venture are confident they can make some swift and adept modifications which will derive some improvement, so watch this space.

Bad haircut 1

Bad haircut 2