Since there are only 2 days in between getting back from Nicaragua and getting in the car to drive to our friends’ wedding in Louisiana, I thought I’d just get my hair trimmed here in Matagalpa…for free…at the beauty school. Juan Pablo’s haircut had come out great there and I only needed a trim to get all the ends even from a previous layered cut.
So off I went with the three wee ones to the beauty school students. First I asked her to trim Emmanuel’s hair which is somewhat curly and frizzy (well, I don’t know the Spanish word for “trim” so I said “solo corta un pocito” or “only cut a little) and she nodded her head vigorously while trying out her English, “only leetle beet.” She cut away as I talked to the other student who asked me to translate some official papers of divorce from the Canadian government that were in English. When the cutting student finished, Emmanuel’s hair looked well enough though I didn’t examine it closely, so there was nothing to alarm me and I took a seat in the chair.
When she looked at me questioningly, I remember distinctly saying, “solo los puntos” which I am pretty sure should mean, “only the tips.” As she started to comb, I noticed the very smart barber’s cape I was wearing. I’ve been trying to buy one ever since I started cutting Daniel’s hair 5 years ago when we married. So I asked my beautician beauty school student if she knew where I could buy one of these capas. She said someone had made the one I was using and then asked the other student who was now cutting a lady’s hair if she knew where to get a capa. She didn’t know.
By this time the combing was over and the cutting had begun and I soon noticed that long lengths of my hair were being cut off. I wasn’t too alarmed because I thought a shorter style, just below the shoulders would be a fine change. I like my hair on the long side (Daniel does, too, and reminded me before to only have a quarter inch or so cut), especially for easy ponytails and my round face looks a bit better with longer locks. So I accepted that I would have shorter than normal hair for a while and reasoned it would still be below my shoulders. I also reasoned with myself that I should “Rejoice always. Give thanks in all circumstances.” Surely I was able to rejoice over a little misunderstanding, right?
I should mention know that during this whole haircut I have Maria Victoria either on my lap and next to me trying to keep her from banging on the glass case next to my chair and trying to keep an eye on the boys at the same time. After glancing out of the corner of my eye a few moments to get a restraint on Maria Victoria’s wrist, I focus back on the progress being made on my hair hoping she is almost done…which she probably would have been if she had only cut the tips off. My eyes bulged a bit as I see her whacking her way around my head in a sort of haphazard way making very uneven layers…or capas. Yikes!
What do I do? I can’t just say “stop,” jump up out of the chair, grab my kids and run out taking the nice barber’s capa with me as a souvenir. No, I was pretty much frozen to my seat except for the occasional whipping out of my arm to catch my one year old and put her back on my lap. I watched closed-lip as she cut and cut and cut some more. At one point the other student looked over and voiced my own thoughts, “You’re cutting layers?” “She said to,” came the reply. Only later once at home as I explained what happened to Daniel did I decide that somehow she possibly got layers (capas) in her head when I asked about capes (capas)…maybe. I’ll give her that instead of calling her outright crazy.
She eventually got to the front and after a bit turned exasperated to the other student to say “Help!” On one side the hair was definitely shorter with crazy layers sticking out everywhere. She mumbled something of an excuse about “la niña” getting in the way or distracting her. The other lady came over, did a few snips here and there enough to satisfy both of them before turning back to her client to say she was done. Then my lady said I was done. As I got up I tried not to look too longingly at the 4 and 5 inch strands of my hair lying on the floor and clinging to Maria Victoria who had decided to lay on the floor out of my reach and play with them.
Once home I warned Daniel before I showed him my head by yelling at the front door, “Daniel, you get what you pay for.” I thought he’d be more upset, but he said I looked beautiful and tried to console me since I was doing less and less rejoicing and giving thanks and more and more ranting and raving about beauty school students who only speak Spanish and don’t concentrate on their work. Yes, Daniel just smiled and said, “You are beautiful…a little shaggy, but beautiful.”
No, I wasn’t thinking all this would happen when I went with my three children under 5 years of age to get my free hair cut by the Spanish-only-speaking students at the ghetto beauty school.
The next day I asked a fluent English-speaking acquaintance where she would recommend going to get my hair cut/repaired. When Daniel was able to watch the kids from 11am through lunch, I ran over to MaxSalon after having looked up a few words in the Spanish-English dictionary, practiced my speech of exactly what happened and exactly what I wanted over and over, and printed out a pictures of my friend Molly and my sister-in-law Susanna to show what I wanted.
The salon turned out to be quite upscale and busy. I waited for a long while which gave me the chance to check out the beauticians at work and give me confidence in their abilities. Finally between doing two other women’s tinting (a very, very common style here), one beautician called me over and I gave her a very breviated account of what passed and what I expected, but I knew she understood and would be able to do it. She took her time, did an excellent job…and didn’t chide me at all for going to the students. I was charged only $3.50! If only I had gone there in the first place! But I shall give thanks that I still have hair, as short as it is. Rejoice; it will grow back.
The Fix: warning to all family and friends who will see me in the next few days...I really do look like this. This is not a joke. :)
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