What is the dividing line between a visitor and a resident? For different people, different things. For me a haircut.
When you know you can't traipse back to your age-old hairdresser, - when Changes on Handside Lane is 5000 miles away - then you have to adapt and to explain your quirks to a new confessor.
When I was little I had pudding basin cuts. Maybe only a few. They've given me a long-lasting deepseated anxiety about fringes above my eyebrows. There be dragons. Don't go there.
'ON the eyebrows' [gesticulates a la language teacher] to show her eyebrows. 'Please.'
I'm easygoing about the rest of my hair. Used to go for cutprice haircuts in expensive London at the Vidal Sassoon student salon. As the then wearer of a bob (=very simple) you'd get the terrified students on their first week in training. Not always good for self esteem as the more experienced trainer would saunter over.
'What shape is her face?'
'Round.'
'What else do you need to think about?'
'I need to compensate for where her ears stick out, here and here.'
But never a disaster. And only a fiver.
A Kenya OldHand advised me when I'd had a successful haircut:
'Take a photo of it now on your phone. Then you can show the hairdresser how you want it, next time.' Foolishly, I forgot. Or didn't bother. Thought I'd busk it.
And for almost two years I squeaked under the wire. Then three days before running a major training course I went for a haircut. And emerged with The Fringe, a monk-like tonsure circling in the stratosphere above my eyebrows. Raged. Cried. Asked for explanation. Demonstrated, again, my eyebrows. Resolved never to return.
But it was a convenient salon. The wounds heal. Yes I wanted to run the training course wearing a balaclava, but I faced it out. And the hair grew longer, and now five months on, after a summer trim in UK I ventured back again.
Gesticulated again to the most pointed-to eyebrows in Nairobi. Explained. Gave reasons. Sought assurances. But made the mistake of shutting my eyes for the fringe bit.
They did it again.
In what parallel universe is that a fringe on the eyebrows?
It even has a gentle slant upwards I now notice.
So if you see a short dark middle-aged woman, wearing a balaclava round Nairobi, treat her kindly. Affect not to notice. And treat your hairdresser with care.
When you know you can't traipse back to your age-old hairdresser, - when Changes on Handside Lane is 5000 miles away - then you have to adapt and to explain your quirks to a new confessor.
When I was little I had pudding basin cuts. Maybe only a few. They've given me a long-lasting deepseated anxiety about fringes above my eyebrows. There be dragons. Don't go there.
'ON the eyebrows' [gesticulates a la language teacher] to show her eyebrows. 'Please.'
I'm easygoing about the rest of my hair. Used to go for cutprice haircuts in expensive London at the Vidal Sassoon student salon. As the then wearer of a bob (=very simple) you'd get the terrified students on their first week in training. Not always good for self esteem as the more experienced trainer would saunter over.
'What shape is her face?'
'Round.'
'What else do you need to think about?'
'I need to compensate for where her ears stick out, here and here.'
But never a disaster. And only a fiver.
A Kenya OldHand advised me when I'd had a successful haircut:
'Take a photo of it now on your phone. Then you can show the hairdresser how you want it, next time.' Foolishly, I forgot. Or didn't bother. Thought I'd busk it.
And for almost two years I squeaked under the wire. Then three days before running a major training course I went for a haircut. And emerged with The Fringe, a monk-like tonsure circling in the stratosphere above my eyebrows. Raged. Cried. Asked for explanation. Demonstrated, again, my eyebrows. Resolved never to return.
But it was a convenient salon. The wounds heal. Yes I wanted to run the training course wearing a balaclava, but I faced it out. And the hair grew longer, and now five months on, after a summer trim in UK I ventured back again.
Gesticulated again to the most pointed-to eyebrows in Nairobi. Explained. Gave reasons. Sought assurances. But made the mistake of shutting my eyes for the fringe bit.
They did it again.
In what parallel universe is that a fringe on the eyebrows?
It even has a gentle slant upwards I now notice.
So if you see a short dark middle-aged woman, wearing a balaclava round Nairobi, treat her kindly. Affect not to notice. And treat your hairdresser with care.
