From the Hammock :The tale of the feet and the hair

It’s not the fault of hair that the feet are hidden far away from the pedestal of the anatomy and therefore like a front display rack in a shop; the head is perfectly organized and made beautiful beyond its natural disposition while in all matters feet are literally and figuratively down the pecking order. The feet and the bumThe feet and their immediate neighbour; the bum are sometimes taken with delicate concern and attention. The sort that requires concentration skills only acquired by scientists of note, forsome women and lately men, the hair and bum are two issues of paramount importance. Even the WEIRD, (Western Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic); where they mock Africans for our love of “booty”, they also revere bums as is illustrated by respectable East African Charles OnyangoObbo; “In many countries, even health-conscious women who exercise to lose weight worry about the bottoms shrinking with the rest of the body. As a result, there are many quack regimes for losing weight in all parts of the body, but the “bumper”. The business of bums and the hair indeed is a major industry in their own right. Particularly for hair it is not just a couple follicles coming out of the scalp; and for others it is a line between opportunity and catastrophe. But generally many of us never care about the shape and features of our feet; but ironically it is safe to state that a man without hair and without a pair of shoes is indeed a mark of poverty, one we would rather avoid on the street. And there’s some truth in the modern proverb that a man without hair spends his money and time on his feet=MOBILITY. A case for HairSome Indians wrap their hair up in a weird robe to resemble a pyramid on top of their anatomies; the Iranians have just decreed a legally accepted haircut while the mullahs in Afghanistan have long imposed a strict beard policy. In my little island hometown on a lake, I saw village women literally burning their skulls with hot combs to perm their hair into curls. It seemed there was a decree that African men were not allowed to grow long hair such that they would be able to take care of their womens’ hair. Try not facilitating your woman’s visit to a salon and you’ll know what that means.Hair control was very liberal toward girls and later in puberty when the girls decided to wear things on their heads that resembled the feathers of the rear side of a chicken, not an eyebrow was raised. But even historically, women’s hair and what they did with it were never a threat to the periodical rulerman of past and present. Forget what you read about the Islamic Burka. At boarding school; boys were routinely required to report for a mandatory haircut on weekends. Nobody asked if the nails were cut or teeth brushed, ears cleaned but the hair had to be short at all times. In the unlikely event that a boy let his hair grow long or took effort in his appearing it was taken as a sign of crafty behaviour. And the widely held opinion was that boys who took too much care in their appearance were gay. And being gay was so horrible that imagining the thing was in itself an evil. Psychology books arrived and informed that us that actually men were more scared of being bald than impotent and to eliminate the fear of a bald; modern African man decided that keeping a clean shaven head was an eternal solution. The colonial had of course the short hair policy baldness withstanding.The colonialist in Africa decreed that the people in his control were prohibited from growing more than an inch of hair. Heaven forbid if your hair grew longer. As happened, all those that were not direct beneficiaries of the colonialist grew long hair as a protest. The colonialist not a fool, decided that only devil worshipers and socially inadequate people allowed their hair to grow long. The marine cutThe army men apparently insist on a hair policy because it exudes hygiene and discipline or so Tony my brother says he was told in training. “Short hair is a mark of hygiene and discipline as is brushing your teeth in the morning.” Hair, its style or texture is stuff I must not bore you with on a Sunday afternoon but it is something else altogether — singular in its capacity to command interest and carry cultural baggage. And allowing my hair to grow longer recently has created situations and the catalyst for a conversation that begins with style but quickly transcends outward appearance and ultimately transcends many images and symbols. According to TIME magazine, nobody has put more significance on hair than US first lady Michelle Obama, the changes in her hairstyle from coiled strands to fully straightened on occassionshas brought to the table the question; “Is it the chemicals of heat?” and what is the normal and accepted symbol for black people’s status in terms of beauty, acceptance and power? donuwagiwabo@gmail.com