I was preparing to return to the hostel because the holiday was over, and there was this hairstyle I loved so much that I wouldn’t miss out on doing it before I returned to school. In fact, it was the major hairstyle I made sure I had on anytime the holiday was over and I had to return to the hostel.
For some major reasons, I loved the hairstyle. First, because it stretched out my hair and it enabled to measure the actual length of my hair before shrinkage, and secondly, because it lasts longer than doing cornrows. This hairstyle also allows me to feel my scalp in a way cornrows wouldn’t let me, and the texture of my hair was always better and easier to handle. So, yeah, threading for the win if you would ask me at the time.
One major difficulty I used to encounter was finding someone perfect to help me thread my hair neatly and since I have a very soft scalp, I needed someone that would be careful enough to not bruise my scalp. I was lucky to find a woman that helped me, but she wasn’t available for some time, so I had to look for another hairdresser to help.
I found another woman. She was very good at it and would meticulously thread my hair in a way I always looked forward to visiting her shop. It was a routine that I visited her shop a few days to resumption so that the pains would’ve reduced before I returned to school, and nothing had ever gone wrong. But this time, something went wrong. In fact, everything went wrong.
It was a week to resumption, and it was time to make my beautiful threading hairstyle, so I visited her shop, but she wasn’t available.
I called her line, and she said, I should come back in about two hours’ time which I did, but it was the same. She wasn’t available to attend to me, so I called her again, and she said, “her apprentice was at the shop, she could attend to me if I wouldn’t have a problem with it because she wouldn’t be back until about three days”.
I wished I had a choice of making the hair myself, but I couldn’t so, I sat down, and the apprentice began to work.
Ten minutes into making my hair, I knew I was a kind of very hot pepper soup because my body was so peppery like I had bathed in a pepper pool. My scalp was burning, and goosebumps covered my body. The weather was hot, but I got extremely cold that I couldn’t find my voice, but I found my thoughts.
At first, I thought I was overreacting, but when I couldn’t sit properly anymore because it felt like I had injections stinging my bum, I said, “don’t worry, just leave it as it is.”
Without further words, I stormed out of the shop and walked as fast as my legs could carry so I could reach home as fast as possible because the veins in my neck and head seemed to be stiffening. I could hardly turn my neck, and my scalp was breathing in a way like it was screaming for help. It actually did need that help.
As soon as I got home, I couldn’t even greet anyone. I screamed out my brothers’ names, and they pulled out the hair with so much care and speed as they could. My kid sister also joined in.
Immediately the hair was pulled off, I sat under the tap and allowed the water pour on my head for about two minutes at a stretch. Immediately, all the sickness I felt earlier disappeared.
Two days to resumption, I had to settle for cornrows because it’s not me that will go back to that shop for another episode.
Images are long time screenshots I found in my google drive when I was contemplating trying the hairstyles again.
This is my entry to InLeo prompt for the month of December.