Mirror, Mirror on the wall,..

I am not a fan of mirror selfies or mirror pictures. Some look great, don’t get me wrong, but I just cringe so hard at the sight of my friends taking mirror selfies. Most have probably never known this but after reading this I bet my inbox will be full of backlash from them trying to justify how cool it is. So I’ll speak no further of it.

Since Monday was a public holiday, I decided to go get a haircut coz I was starting to look and feel like John the Baptist. Or was it Samson who was told to not shave his head? And my local barber is some muscular luhya man who I always fear if he gets me in a chokehold in that chair that would be the end of me. His arms are veiny without even trying. And I bet you he doesn’t even go to the gym; that’s just years of heavy ugali and farm work at home with little to no stress of looking fit. He didn’t need to build his arms and body brick by brick. He was born that way.

Anyway, I went for the haircut to also let loose a little since my weeks are getting busier and I haven’t had time to catch my breath. And it was worth it. If I did free promos I’d tag the barbershop here, but it is also located deep in the forests of Kabete you wouldn’t make it all the way here just for a haircut.

I fortunately found no other customer waiting coz it was around lunch hour and most people come to get a shave in the afternoon. What caught my nose and eyes immediately though, was the strong smell of omena (silver cyprinid) coming from a huge bowl by the side of the machines. Brother, this bowl was deep! I found my barber eating, (eating is the wrong word), DEMOLISHING the ugali while sparing the little omena for the last bites.

“Take your time.” I smiled at him, not wanting to force him to speak with his cheeks full, and also fully understanding the intimate relationship between a luhya man and his lunch. You don’t want to be the one standing between them. Let him have his moment, I mumbled under my breath. After all, I was the one with the bad timing. It was lunch hour, give the man a break.

In came his assistant, a curvy Luo woman who did the facials and massages after you get your hair cut. I’ve always had an eye for this lady, and she was one of the reasons I even located this barbershop when I moved to Kabete in first year. She’s glowingly dark skin and the oils she uses for the massages make her arms oily and soft. Have I told you about her cute calf muscles? That barbershop is a joint barbershop and salon and other beauty stuff I know nothing about. And so the employees, including the luhya man, wear a uniform. The ladies wear knee-level black skirts with a custom t-shirt for everyone. And her skirt fits her perfectly, exposing her lovely calves disappearing in neat doll shoes. Maybe too perfectly, coz it makes me lose focus on my shave and I’m left staring at her in the background of the large mirror in front of me. The barber has probably caught this multiple times but what can he do? Pretty and curvy girls are a brilliant marketing technique by salons and beauty parlors. And I’m just a victim, or should I say beneficiary, of brilliant marketing.

“As usual?” she asked me in Swahili with her normal soft voice, deeply loaded with a Luo accent. On day one of me going here she also noticed I’m a Luo and our bond has been mutual ever since.

I nodded at her question, too stunned by her perfume today to even speak.

My man was now done with his lunch, quickly washed his hands and signaled me to sit in the chair. I won’t lie, I was scared. Not that he’d have me in a chokehold or that he’d shave me terribly, but that the intrusive smell of omena would be stuck in my head for the rest of the week. Even after washing with the soap, I could still sniff it every time his hands moved close to my beard. I had even planned to trim my beard this time but I wasn’t going to risk months of growing this mane just to have it smell of omena later.

If you’ve ever taken silver cyprinid, as I hear chefs call it, you know that the smell doesn’t leave you till it wants to. No matter how many times you brush your teeth, drink mouthwash, chew mints, wash your hands with soap, it won’t leave until it wants to. And that is the thought I trembled at. I was at the verge of telling him I would come back another day, but remember what I told you about getting between a luhya and his lunch? I wouldn’t risk it. I had made him eat in haste and now I wanted to ditch? That chokehold would have come out of nowhere.

And so I sat there, thinking of all the ways I’d wash my scalp after the shave. Despite my girlfriend’s pleas to have me not shave so cleanly, I still shave to the very roots of my hair coz I don’t know what to do with my hair. Maybe I’ll join the bald man’s association with the likes of Bien, coz I’ve also noticed a trend of bald rich men, so maybe I’ll be one.

He was done with the shave and to my heaviest sigh of relief, the attractive Luo assistant chipped in to save my head.

“I’ll handle it from here!” I wish she had said it like those female detectives who enter a crime scene late just for dramatic effect.

Her soft oily hands now rubbed my scalp while I sat in a massage chair with a warm towel on my neck. She sprayed some fragrant chemical on my head as she continued to rub gently, her kind enquiry of how my weekend had been made me drool uncontrollably. I let go of all the stress I’d had last week and felt at home in her hands. I felt like I was floating. I was in my fantasies, deep in an enchanted world.
If there’s anything I’d fully recommend to anyone is a thorough massage by a beautiful woman. You’d forget all your troubles. You wouldn’t need to be told to live in the moment coz you wouldn’t want the moment to end.

But it had to end for me, I’d been drooling in that chair for 20 minutes straight and my bill was only getting higher. But my assessment tells me she also didn’t want to stop rubbing my neck and back, and twisting my head in ways I didn’t think it could twist. God bless the work of that lady’s hands. She is an angel, dearly!

What I am most glad about though, is that my head is omena-smell free, and I got a nice haircut and a wonderful face scrub to get rid of acne I didn’t even know I had. I would have taken a video or pictures of my haircut but as I began, I cringe at mirror selfies. Maybe one day you’ll see it from my view but until then, do share this publication😁.
I write this from my hard mattress and I click my tongue every time I break a paragraph, coz I’ve been at a place of comfort and these pillows just don’t seem to cut it anymore.

✍🏽Quote of the Week

PS: If you have a few seconds to spare, please hit the <reply> button and let me know what you thought of this email. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it and what could be improved. It also reminds me that there’s another person reading it on the other end of my screen😅. Thanks.

Have a wonderful week ahead!

✍🏽Reagan.