Got my hair did!

Date: 21 December 2007

I got corn-rowed! COOL HUH? I keep touching my head - it feels like it's someone else's. So yes, I got this done yesterday afternoon. Beforehand, everyone was telling me how I was going to cry and it was going to be extremely painful - me of course, thinking, yeah yeah, sure, another foreigner-ism that you just have to say.

No.

It was actually hideously painful. I didn't want my face to reveal the excruciating agony that I was experiencing, but oh. My. GOD. All in the name of beauty, right? I believe at one point during the process of having 4-7 Togolese women pulling at my hair in different directions and twisting and tweaking, in my mind I compared this to the process of childbirth. Bad example, I know, but this is how much pain I felt. Especially because at the start, it's not so bad, but once they get to the one-third mark of the braid, you feel like you're going to die, and then it passes, and they finish the braid off and you're fine. Then they start the next one, and you think, great, more nauseating pain! GREAT! Much like what I imagine contractions would be like - you know when the next one's coming, you proceed to have a panic attack, and then it hits you and you want to die from the pain, etc (yeah, really bad example, sorry. I kind of just thought of it then went with it.)

I nearly just said "yeah you know what, forget it, I'm a wimp" but I'd talked up my toughness so much at that point that I really couldn't back down.

But I went through with it. YES. I had a mild aneurism in the middle of the night because I've forgotten what long hair feels like and I thought something was crawling on my back, alas it was not.

Apparently you're meant to feel extreme tension and headaches for a couple of days (which I am), but I really hope they go away because it's not the most pleasant feeling.
COOL!!

(I tried uploading pics but something isn't working - I've put some up on facebook :D)