On a Saturday in
January we had a fun experience. Sister Riendeau keeps her hair short –
her hair is so easy to maintain, I’m jealous of it. However, Sister
Riendeau kept complaining that her hair was growing out of control. She
bought razor blades in the store so she could do some trimming on her own, but
found she was limited when it came to the back of her head, and I wouldn’t even
attempt such a thing. She brought hair trimmers from home, in case anyone
knew how to use them, but no one in the office will even try to cut hair.
Sister McMullin (the mission president’s wife) keeps talking about bad haircuts
that she gets, so she can’t refer anyone reliable. The Sisters in the
office keep talking about other places that may be worth a try, but we have no
way of going out on our own to scout around town to find somebody.
The mission has
several vehicles and we can go anyplace we need to go, but in those early days of our mission, someone had to drive us everywhere and then wait for a couple of hours before picking us up again. They were willing to do that, but we don't want to ask such a thing.
The really big problem is that the Congolese hair is all the same: very black and kinky, and not easy to work with.
Every woman has several wigs, and sometimes when you
see the same woman in church a few weeks apart you don’t recognize her because
she will be wearing a different wig – and a different dress.
They also
wear different types of nets or scarves around their heads like turbans to match their dresses. 
They are quite creative when it comes to hair.
Another thing they do is braid extensions into their hair, sometimes continuing with long tiny braids, or just using long straight extensions to give the illusion of having long straight hair. They then have the flexibility of arranging the extended hair into different creative styles.
They
have an amazing talent of braiding tiny and multiple “corn rows” on their heads
and especially the young girls, even adding little beads to their creations.
Of course, a few women just let
their hair grow out a little bit and pull it straight back and put a pony-tail
band around it, then there is this frizzy ball thing sticking out on the back
of the head.
So, being that
American hair type is drastically different from Congolese hair is one reason
why no one wants to go out and experiment with different hair dressers.
We were actually thinking about going Congolese style and having extensions
braided into our hair. Of course, some of the beauty shops look rather
atrocious, rising up right out of the mud, so you have to wonder about sanitary
conditions.
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Back to Sister
Riendeau. She was in such a state of desperation that she started praying
about what to do about her hair. We were thinking about getting one of
the couple missionaries to drop us off at Hotel Lubumbashi to find a hair
dresser, even though we had no input on whether or not that would be a good
choice. However, everyone was gone, so we were out of luck with that idea anyway.
We had given up on the
hair problem and decided to walk to the market to get some items we were in
urgent need of. There is a little grocery store called Hyper-Psaro,
probably ¾ of a mile away. We live in a neighborhood where ex-patriots
live and there is a European customer base for the store.
As we
approached the store, I noticed a tall, white woman just checking out and I had
the impression to approach her and ask her two questions, first, if she spoke
English, and second, if she knew of anyone around that worked with hair.
Well, she does speak English, her name is Bethany and she is from Australia and
has lived in the Congo for what she said is a long time. Second, she had
just had her hair cut that very morning and she does have a favorite hair
dresser that lives not very far way. The hair dresser’s name is Monique, and
she specializes in European-type hair, and she works out of her home.
We got Monique’s phone
number and address. Monique, however, does not speak English. She
speaks French and Swahili. Sister Riendeau gave her a call, and we were
fully prepared to continue our walk to go and find her – if she would take time
to see us. As it turned out, she did have time to see us, and as she was
explaining to Sister Riendeau the walking directions for getting to her house, she paused and said, “No,
if you walk you will most likely get lost, so I will send my chauffeur to pick
you up.” Well, that is just what she did.
We waited by the large
shopping center marquee sign at the entrance to the shopping center looking for
a car we didn’t know with a driver we’d never seen before to come and pick us
up and take us away. A vehicle did came,
and we got into the vehicle, and he drove away. It all seemed a little
strange. But all was as promised. We went to the correct street and
to a very green gate (vehicles stop at gates and honk their horns and wait for
a guard to open the gates). As we entered the property behind the high walls, it was beautiful. Green lawn, beautiful flowers and trees
everywhere and immaculately kept. We went inside the home, and were
escorted to Monique’s beauty parlor. We fell in love with Monique.
She has every kind of blood you can imagine. She is ¼ Congolese, meaning
black blood, but she is also Belgium, Spanish, and other stuff. Her skin
is a beautiful olive white and she has beautiful long, wavy blonde hair.
Her great grandfather was a Congolese tribal chief of one of the tribes that sold other blacks into slavery many long years ago.
Monique’s house was clean, orderly, and lovely. Her housekeeper, a Congolese, washed our hair, and then Monique cut the hair of both of us. She
had all the right tools and equipment for a licensed shop, and she has the
natural skill and ability of a well-trained beautician. She said her
usual rate was $50/haircut, but for missionaries she gives us a rate of
$30. Even at that, I was amused by the fact that here this lady was,
never had to take time out to go to beauty school, never paid for cosmetology
education, didn’t have to pay to pass a test or for a license, doesn’t have any
overhead (for the most part) because she works out of her home, and still she
earned $60.00 from us on that day. AND we were happy to pay her. (The
average annual wage in the Congo is $300, which is less than $1.00/day.)
We don’t see that kind of initiative in the people here for the most part. Her chauffeur drove us back to the store; we continued with our shopping and walked
home all coiffed up and feeling good about ourselves.
We have a new friend
and will be visiting her many times during our stay in the DR Congo. We
learned a lot more about her and her gift for gardening as well.
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| Monique the Beautician in her backyard garden. |
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| Monique and Sister Riendeau |
In any case, if I’m
supposed to talk about spiritual experiences while I’m on this mission, the
trip to the beautician was truly a spiritual experience in many ways.
