BECOMING AS ONE

KWANZA WAS SPECTACULAR in its presentation during the community affair put on by the Mayor's office. They dressed in their finest Afrocentric costumes of blooming color explosions and wrapped headgear of greens and tourmaline intermeshed with cerulian blue. It all brought to mind the days of college studied history of Black Communities and finding our place within. Nehru and cocobeans strung and hung around the neck of the instructor and his assistant, congo drum enunciations for rythm felt appreciation of what our generation was missing for being in America's small town suburbia. Kwanza reawakened on my return home from a stint outside into a world more concerned with fiduciary return and filling nigh heels in the material world... away from the "true importance of being in society." With the holidays gone past and me needing to blend in, I set out to find the shop capable of updoing my hair so that mine would at least resemble that of the locals back here at home. The bump and press or perm styles were creating an ache that caused embarassing gestures of fingerpointing and guffaws... we had to be black, and now. It was imperative that I get a "real Afro hairdo"... preferrably by a "real African stylist."

I shopped around until I was pointed to a shop run by a man and his sisters who had been in business for a good while and came highly recommended. The Mayor's friend and a relative knew the family fairly well... they were from Ghana. My appointment set, I made sure I did not miss the date.

Upon entering frm the corner store set at 95th and Western... near Evergreen Plaza, I noticed a burgundy beret... military style similar to that seen on the Mayor's head one day while in his relaxed repose. The splash of purple on the window's sign and the red, black and the green drawn on the balance of the afro Braid Shop name displayed the proud heritage they felt for having landed in Chicago so far away from African plains. I made short conversation as the brother sized me up for a design chosen by one of three sisters who muddled around in and out of a back room past the hat rack and the burgundy hat. I listened between my own words to hear what they were doing and stood to gather my purse from where it rested beneath my jacket in the seat next to me. I asked what the price was for the style he was about to create and wondered of why he, and not the sisters, was doing the deed. When the brother announced that he was "better" for the women, the sister's stepped out and announced their departure to the mall. They would return from shopping... shortly; and the brother began. He spilled something black into his hand and lit it with a match causing it to flame until her blew it out to allow it to smoke and smolder. One the red embers were gone, he blew the ash into my hair dropping strand by strand by hand to evenly distribute his puff and residue. I was suspicious. The ashes gone and onto my scalp, he began parting dripping and twisting the design his sister handed him on a magazine page. Many hours later, the typical hour when Chicago stores close and send shoppers home or elsewhere, the sisters returned. My hair was twisted and pulled into painful knots and platts that caused me to wonder "why I'd chosen to go this way." The many bags in the sister's arms brought no friendly girlish chatter about the mall, no inquiry of "how I was fairing" and no test of the brother's endurance or need for a sustitute braiding hand. He was nearly done. His demonstration of the back of my head by mirror and the broad grin on his face belied his confidence in his own skill. I broke the silence, "The soot blown into my hair was traditional to your home in Africe?" None answered. Instead the women smiled, one wriggled her nose at the brother and they tipped off and away into the back room once again giggling. I was suspicious. "Was the soot traditional to your home back in Ghana?" I asked him as I paid him the requested $380 fee. He said nothing, but thanked me for payment. I stood to leave and gestured toward the cap on the wall, "Is that your's... my friend who recommended this shop has one just like it." The Afro Hair Braiding man responded, "No.. it belongs to a friend of mine. He left it there earlier." He smiled wide before continuing, "See you again in four weeks?" I smiled broadly, and replied, "I'll see about that."

I washed my hair and took the painful braids out over the next few days. I looked horrendous and my scalp had begun to itch and redden terribly ...possibly from the mysterious African ashes blown onto my scalp. I was not fitting the Ujichagalia ideal. I don't know that I ever truly will.