haircut

            After traversing the streets, balconies, and the narrow expanses of broken cement called sidewalks, we failed to find the barber. Through directions in English half as broken as they were asked for in Nepali, we found ourselves a small barbershop overlooking the city of Mahrajgunj. My company, Emily and Lyle, left to get power converters, and I waited patiently as the barber cut the little hair that his current client entered with. He finished. Despite the dirty looks that I received on the half-mile walk down, due to my hair not nationality, I was not prepared for what was in the barber’s eyes as I approached. I was a pain. He was a writer, and I was a book burner. I began pointing to pictures and drew invisible lines in my hair like a cutoff section of a children’s book. After a couple of minutes I sat down and gave into the fact that he was going to do whatever he wanted with my hair, it was almost like we were speaking different languages.

            Last afternoon, one of the Pre-Service directors and I talked about Nepali business, where it came out that my now shoulder-length hair isn’t professional in Nepali culture. I’ve suspected this of the culture after a few conversations with Nepali’s and past volunteers. I’m an ambassador, and even though I’d often shrug off the question from friends with something like “it’s the Peace Corps, you have to look like a hippie to get the interview,” it takes professionalism to succeed here; and to succeed here I would do anything.

            Still, hair is a powerful symbol, from the biblical Samson, to certain cartoon characters who’s hair grows and becomes blonder as they increase in strength and kung-fu might. For me, it is a simple nod to the wild inside that I so appreciate. After a quick call to Melaina I was relieved that this wouldn’t end our relationship, and I set out with my new friends Lyle and Emily, thinking that two years in rural Nepal would prove better fuel for my wild side than what then hung heavy from my head.

            A flurry of concentrated chaos ensued, as his hands became his comb and scissor. The deep snarls in my head denying his comb kept his irritation palpable. Thirty minutes later and I passed judgment that this was the best haircut I’ve received. I gave up words with this man long ago. Thinking it an opportune chance to practice Nepali, I said “Mero naam Luke ho. Tapaiko naam k ho?” His only response to my stab at introductions was a deep exhale. After that, I didn’t even bother asking how many people were in his family, even though I just learned it. He moved the small hand mirror and “Ramro cha” very good, I agreed.

            Then something happened, I choose to view this as the man’s self proclaimed service to his country. It was the initial conversion of a longhaired foreigner into someone acceptable in Nepalese society. As the cutting of the hair concluded, he began grabbing my hair and quickly running through it with unrelenting force and rhythm. He would beat the back of my head with his fists, and then massage the perpetrated areas. Some of it hurt, some was undeniably pleasurable. As he whacked my head odd clicking sounds emitted from his hands. I stared in the mirror with bizarre amazement as my vision distorted then focused at each impact. He held my chin and shook me side to side until my newly cut hair stood from all ends, almost electrocuted like my mystified mind, my baffled brain. The process concluded after half an hour with a deep face massage, centered around my eyes. He pulled my eyelids in a final crescendo; as I opened them I saw the Nepal that maybe he wanted me to. I got up and paid what we agreed on, two hundred rupees, around two American dollars.

            Going into a barbershop, you can predict how you’ll look and feel as you exit, and the steps that took you up there. Here in Nepal, I was enchanted and stunned as I was smacked around and altered. Some of it was good, some bad, some familiar, some foreign, some hurt, some the opposite, I witnessed the most bizarre of simple feats. I imagine I will look back and say something similar of my years here