UnbeWEAVEable

Today, I got my hurr did. Like a Ghanaian.

It all started out back in September, when Jamie and I started talking about getting our hair braided at some point while we were here.  The kids like to play around with it, but I really wanted to try getting it done professionally, so that it would actually look good.

Irene, our local shopkeeper/best friend, is a woman of many talents: she also happens to be a hair-dresser.  She told me that if I wanted to get my hair done baako baako (one one -- aka not cornrows), then I would need to use a weave, because I simply do not have enough hair.  For those who don't know, "weave" is essentially fake hair that is woven into the real hair to increase volume or change color.

Now, the idea of using weave made me nervous  -- to start with, I had visions of myself with black hair, looking incredibly stupid. Second, I remembered Emily telling me how weave smells really bad (I hadn't noticed this...).  So the idea of getting our hair done became a joke that sort of faded into the background.

Until December 27. Jamie and I were at Makola (a huuuuuuge market in Accra) and happened to see some blonde weave. It was too expensive (8 GHC for a short one!), but it reignited the idea in our minds.  Then, a couple weeks later in Tema, we found a blonde and a reddish weave, each only 3 GHC. I promptly bought them, and set up an appointment with Irene to do my hair.

This morning, I left the house looking like this:

An hour later, Jamie came by to check on the progress... All I had were a few braids and a whole lot of messy hair:

Irene was speedy speedy speedy with her hands. Here we are already working in the second half of the weave that I bought.

After 2.5 hours, still not the finished product... at this point, I felt like a mermaid. The front ended up being more red than intended because we ran out of weave! And had to work in a extra red one with the remaining blonde.  Jamie is really excited for all the braids to be in:

The finished product! (after about 5 hours)

For the next 3 weeks, I don't have to wash my hair!! We'll see how long I make it before I cave and try to wash it...