African Hair Braiders

The other day, I went to the local grocery store to buy some mangoes...don't get me started on the mango-less mangoes in this country. I miss real fruits! Fruits with juice! Mangoes that dont taste like tangerine-flavored bananas!

So, there I am, in the blazing heat, parading my jeans and fro, I meet this beautiful young woman. I will be PC and not suggest her ethnicity feela I know that can arise in some issues. But, she did look Ethiopian :-P. The first thing I noticed about her though, was her braids. Crafted to perfection, they fell on her defined shoulders like....emmm..well, like braids on defined shoulders (this is why I'm not a poet).

I'm a big hair person. Both in the big-hair sense and the big-on-hair sense. Reason number 2 why I look forward to going to Swaziland each year : African Hair Braiders. Hay suka, I have to give it up to my sisters! Back in high school, I was one of those that didn't catch on with the hair braiding during lunch (Must have been too busy with that Additional Maths book) so I never quite grasped the skill of braiding hair. I can barely get away with doing box braids on my own hair before bed. Let alone dive into ponytail, kinky twists, fish tail, pencil tips, microbraids, Senegalese twists, Z-curl, yaki bulk, 419....the list goes on, believe me. The color tones go from 1 (jet black) to 35 (honey blonde) with any combination of the above.

Eversince I made that fateful decision to come to the States...I knew I was going to miss getting my hair done whenever I wanted, getting the latest braids for a little less than $20 (yes, not the $200 I pay here). I've noticed plenty of Africans (especially West Africans) starting hair braiding salons in the inner cities of the United States, making money like nobody's business....can't hate. I just love my African Hair Braiders, they keep us beautiful, they keep us fresh, they keep our pockets healthy at the same time...and their hands are a work of art!