On Beauty

November 19, 2007

Wanting to avoid the exorbitant salon prices at the posh hotel called the Meridien across the street, I thought I would try getting my hair cut in the nearby village of Ngor before the start of classes. My last haircut was of course in Holland, when my dear aunt coiffed me beautifully and even shared lovely milky coffee with me afterwards, and Stroopwafels - oh, the days of wine and roses!

So I entered the disreputable looking shack with a single chair and no running water or Barbicide anywhere in sight and felt misgivings immediately, but who can resist a four dollar haircut? So I sat obediently and explained that I just wanted a trim, and the man got to work with his electric shaver, going back and forth along the right side of my head until my scalp was shining through, glowing pinkly in the dark shack.

Thankfully the electricity was cut off all of a sudden (this happens frequently here, see previous column) and so we were interrupted before any further damage could be done. The barber walked me about a kilometer down the dirt road to the next barber’s hut - keep in mind that not only was I glaringly conspicuous in this village anyway because of my melanin deficiency, but that I looked like half a plucked chicken to boot!

Anyway, Barber No 2 got to work without pausing to ask what I wanted. I debated briefly as to whether or not I ought to be polite, decided the hell with it and finally just got out of the chair mid-cut before any further damage could be done. Thus it came to pass that the toubab (white) schoolteacher started classes in the first week looking awfully – well, strange. When enough hair grew back for me to finally go to the Meridien salon for a repair job, the very proper Frenchman who cut my hair ventured only to query politely whether perhaps Madame had cut her hair herself last time…?

“Almost,” replied Madame, red-faced.

The Madame/Mademoiselle distinction here is very important; everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, wants to know whether or not a single white woman is married or available. I have found elegant ways of dodging the question, frequently posed by complete strangers on the street, but most recently I was gobsmacked when a passing acquaintance (a seller of bananas at a local kiosk, to be precise) offered me free advice: if I let my hair grow, I could wear it in braids, like the locals, and by the way, I would look much better if only I would wear dangly earrings! I laughed and thanked him, telling him I very much doubted that anyone would mistake me for a local girl, even with a headful of braids, and forbearing to mention that given the lovely dusky blue of my US passport I could have been married several times over during my three month sojourn here, even without the additional inducement of earrings!

The Senegalese value female beauty, as do people all over the world, but it takes on a particularly important role in a polygamous culture where the woman lives with the certain knowledge that if she is no longer pleasing to her man, he can and will take a second wife and is moreover perfectly entitled to do so. Thus, the heads of girl babies are shaved when they are born so that their hair will grow in full and rich and luxuriant.

In certain villages, girls are still made to wear heavy necklaces and collars around their necks to elongate them, lending beauty and grace to their posture. (Carrying heavy loads, whether buckets of laundry, water or sea urchins on top of one’s head fulfills the same function, oddly enough, and Senegalese women also tend to have beautifully sculpted upper arms from securing these loads on their heads). Boy and girl babies alike are massaged with beurre de karite, or shea butter, to give them hydrated and gorgeous skin.

Around the age of 4 or 5 or so, girls are given little beaded elastics called bin bin to wear around their waists. These are said to give them shapely curves. (Disparaging remarks will often be made of a homely or shapeless woman, e.g. that she clearly was not made to wear bin bin as a child, hence the unfortunate result). Later on, these strings of beads take on a more overtly seductive function, as they are played with by the man during lovemaking; in addition, incense or thiouraye is burned to perfume the bedroom and special beaded loincloths called betios as well as sachets of spices may be worn by the woman as part of a couple’s bedroom ritual. (Since I have only been here for such a short time, let me hasten to reassure you that I do not know about any of these things firsthand. It is helpful in the extreme to have one’s older students fill one in on the customs of the country, however!)

About the Author : Tamara-Diana Braunstein brings us her stories from Senegal every week. She was born in Brooklyn, New York. She is a restless wanderer who earned an MA from the University of Freiburg and has worked in a youth hostel in the French Alps, a law firm in Montreal, the Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as in university press publishing. At the moment her home base is Dakar, Senegal, where she is supposed to be teaching but is doing far more learning, as you will see by reading her blog at www.senegalschoolmarm.blogspot.com