Oburni gets braids.

I’ve wanted to get my hair braided since I got here; when in Africa do as the Africans do right? But at the same time I was a little bit nervous. I’ve heard stories about how much it hurts and that it ruins your hair. I’ve also heard that it can pull your hair line back if they braid them too tight. But I’ve learned people are over dramatic half the time, and these were all just stories. I was also a little worried I would look… weird. I thought that maybe I would look bald because you would be able to see so much of my scalp. But with all those worries, I still went for it. I saw a few white international students who had it done, and I thought, hey if they can do I can do it.  

Afia, my roommate, took Kelly and me to a place in Madina. Kelly got just her natural hair braided with no added hair. I just went for it; I wanted the whole look of it all. They picked a color of hair that was surprisingly almost identical to my natural hair color. They mixed together a light brown and a dark brown. It was really interesting to watch them mix the hair. They just pull it apart and put it back together, but they do it so fast and with so much class it’s just fun to watch. I ended up getting what look like twists instead of actual braids, but the look is still very similar and the process is identical. There were three women braiding my hair at all times.  At a couple points within the process there were more, sometimes up to five. 

They put my hair in a pony tail on the top of my head and pulled small amounts of hair out at a time to braid. A very small amount of my natural hair went into each individual braid with the fake hair. That is why it ended up being so thick and full. There are so many braids! It took a very long time; I was at the place for about five hours. Even though they braid so fast, which was really interesting to watch, they spent four of those five hours just braiding. The fake hair begins at my scalp, so anyone, no matter how long their natural hair is, would end up with braids just as long as mine. 

It was a very painful process though. The women told me that they had to pull tighter because my hair is so silky in comparison to what they are use to, this is why it hurt so much. There was a slight constant pain of the tightness of the braids, but then there were the sharp pains when they would pull my hair out of the pony tail and start a new braid. Once they had finished braiding they cut all the frizzys off of the braids with scissors. They then put the braids in boiling water; I think that helps keep the braids from unraveling. Nothing was put at the ends; they are just so tight they don’t come undone. Once they were done, my hair was put in a pony tail. It was so heavy while it was wet!

My scalp was slightly tender all of last night and into this morning. It was a little hard to find a comfortable position to sleep in because of the massive amount of hair on my head and the tenderness of my scalp. I woke up with a slight head ache but took some ibuprophen and now I’m fine. It’s been a little scratchy too, but I was told that is normal for the first few days and then goes away.