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Thursday, March 08, 2012HAIR RAISING IN LAGOS Well, my experience of yesterday has left me with another tale of woe & the 2nd one involving a hairdresser. As one may guess, the majority of the female population here has short, black curly hair. This portion of the female population can pop into any 'Barbering Shop' (what hairdressers are called here) & get their hair cut, braided, weaved, whatever & for a small fee..........................whereas yours truly, being pale skinned, has had to hunt high & low to find a hairdresser who deals strictly with 'Westerners' hair. Some months ago, I was told about a salon, which was allegedly 'just off the Lekki road'. Considering I had no name for the salon, because "everyone knows where it is" & the Lekki road being at least 10km long, I hasten to add, that I did not find what I was looking for. Being 'just off' is the same as saying it could be anywhere between 200m & 2km, but hell, who am I to complain, because "everyone knows where it is". (At this initial stage, a bitch slap would suffice on my Aggro Indicator) I managed to get my hair done in Tenerife in December, but the time really had come when I needed to get it done again. I was then told about a 'salon' which was tucked away upstairs in one of the 'expat' grocery stores. I found it OK & spoke to a 'hairdresser' who told me that sure, he could do a cut & hi-lites for me if I simply phoned for an appointment. The salon was closed at that time, so I went away, armed with a business card & telephone number. The following day, I rang & made an appointment for 10.30am, yesterday. I arrived at the salon at 10.25am only to find it closed. Not a good start on my Aggro Indicator. After waiting 15mins, I phoned the number I had been given, only to be met with profuse apologies because aforementioned 'hairdresser' (a Lebanese guy by the way) was stuck in traffic & he'd be there in about 20mins. (A further notch on my Aggro scale). At just after 11am, I was seated in a chair that offered as much comfort as a slab of concrete & my 'hairdresser' fart-arsed around looking for a towel, then a hairdryer(?) & then a brush. It was during this time that I changed my focus from the Lebanese guy & onto my surroundings. It was dark, dingy & it appeared to be in a time warp - somewhere around 1964 I reckon. The walls were a shade of 'ewww' blue colour & stained with gawd knows how many years of grime & the wooden 'fixtures' were looking slightly dodgy to say the least. The 'salon' soon filled up with customers & I noticed a rather portly chap in the chair next to me was having his hair dyed brown. Hmmmm. Two wimmin came in - one bitched that she would have to wait & the other one bitched even more that her treatment was going to take at least 3hrs, so how long would she have to be there for? I was sorely tempted to tell her to get the hell out while the going was good! The next thing I know, my hair was being brushed & attacked with a hairdryer...................why for Gawds sake.................nothing had been done! Ahhh............well................a few seconds later, this (by now) horrible little Leb stretched one of the old fashioned hi-lite rubber caps over my head & reached for a crochet hook faster than I could scream "WTF?" No one, but no one uses rubber caps for hi-lites anymore!!! Wrong! They bloody well do in Lagos! (Forgive my apparent crudeness, but I feel that having my head squeezed into a hi-lite cap must be about the same as a bloke putting a Durex on!) Oh my lawd, for the next HOUR, this hateful little git stuck his crochet hook through the pinholes in the cap & pulled out what felt like one hair at a time. My arse had gone totally numb but the pain reflexes of my brain were centered solely on my scalp & I flinched so often that I fear I now have a permanent 'tic' in my neck & shoulders. Eventually, I could take no more & said "ghalas, ghalas!" (finished, in Arabic) & the little fekker, thinking I could speak his lingo, replied with the equivalent of "nearly done" or some such thing. If there had been a kebab stick anywhere near me I would've poked the bastards eyes out with it. I was ready to kill. My head was throbbing. My piles thought they had died & gone to heaven as they were having such a good time. My kidneys thought my throat had been cut. Hell, by this time, I would've downed a half jack of vodka if it was offered, just to take the edge off the pain! My nicotene cravings became almost unbearable. One of the other 'hairdressers' lit a fag & I thought "yay!" so I asked my little Lebanese cretin if I could smoke? "No.......no............no!" he replied & I had to make do with trying to suck in 2nd hand smoke, just to try & calm my nerves! I think my lips took on a blue tinge, although I couldn't say for sure as I couldn't put my glasses on............ After my flinching from terror at the crochet hook subsided, I was left to wait until the peroxide mix for my hair was ready. This involved the Lebanese Poisoned Dwarf lurking behind a wall & mixing frantically the necessary ingredients to turn my hair blonde again. Between slurps of vile smelling Arabic coffee & some really suspicious hand movements, he armed himself with the gunk & was ready to apply it to my head. It was slapped on with as much grace as a plasterer on 'roids & I found my head being pushed around at some really odd angles. Eventually, I was wrapped in tinfoil & placed underneath a 'warmer' dryer, which ran on steam. I tried to keep my sagging spirits up by telling myself I was practically 2/3rds of the way through this agonising process. I ended up being under the steamer for 45mins & think I gave the Leb a look that said "I dare you to put that fucking thing on my head one more time, cos there's gonna be bloodshed". He lifted the foil, was happy that I had baked for long enough. The gurgling 'steamer' was removed & I sat for a minute, wondering if my ears would spring back into their natural position on my head, when the cap was removed. Ahhh yes, the cap. The idiotic twat of a hairdresser proceeded to try & remove the cap from my head, without washing the peroxide(d) hi-lites off first. He tugged & pulled & from the blurred vision I saw of myself in the mirror in front of me, I looked like I would walk out of the salon with a Croydon Facelift*! Realising the cap wasn't going to come off without a fight, the fuckwit ushered me around a partitioning wall. This is where I saw the sink & this is where I shook my head in disbelief. The sink must have been one of the first 'professional' salon sinks imported into Nigeria & I'm guessing that was around 1962. It wasn't fixed to its mounting & therefore wobbled uncontrollably when anyone got near it. It was stained & I suspect had its own eco system living in & around the plughole. The shower hose was attached to 2 rusty taps, also circa 1962 I reckon, but was minus the shower attachment - i.e. it was just a flexible pipe, which was unravelling at the end. My Aggro Indicator flew off the scale! I was told to sit, so I sat, but the chair was in a fixed position (bolt upright) so I couldn't exactly lean back into the sink. The solution to this problem was for me to sit with the last remaining bit of bum available on my torso, perched precariously on the edge of the chair & to then lean back. The arthritis in my lower spine sent a silent message that basically said "stand up, stand up NOW!" & I had nothing short of a white knuckle death-grip on the arms of the chair, where I literally thought I was clinging on for dear life! Thank gawd, the Nigerian hair-washer didn't mess around & after 2 quick washes & a conditioning treatment, I was allowed to stand up. Briefly. I then had to sit on the concrete chair again, in order to get my hair cut. Please, please I begged to myself, don't let this Lebanese Oxygen Thief fart around! I indicated with my thumb & forefinger that I wanted him to cut "this much" off the ends. Did he listen? Did he buggery. The scissor weilding moron cut my hair to less than an inch long. At the end of it all, I told myself, the same as I did when the hairdresser in Dublin scalped me last year, that my hair will grow back.......................it'll grow back......................... And for all of my agony, I was charged a staggering N17,000 (R825) ($105) (83Yoyos) Once bitten, twice shy. I hope the Leb fuckwit chokes on his next shawarma & shits hummus for the next fortnight. The hi-lites are a nice colour tho............................... . . . . .
* Definition of a Croydon Facelift : Having ones hair pulled & bunched together to such an extent ones face appears as if it has just seen the most frightening sight, altho' 'wide eyed' becomes more like 'Oriental eyed'. Labels: Hairdresser in Lagos, Lebanese cretins, where is my niqab when I need it?  
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