Getting Braided

As hot season approaches I recently got my hair braided again. I have a serious love/hate relationship with getting my hair braided for several reasons.

On the side of LOVE:
-Every woman Malian has her hair braided from the moment the hair is long enough to braid
-It is much cooler
-It gives me a reason not to wash it
-I don’t have to fuss with it

On the side of HATE:
-Malian women don’t know how to braid white hair
-Sunburns!
-It takes forever to braid and even longer to take out
-My hair is so long it tangles inside of the braids
-It pulls a lot of my hair out and makes it more fragile

However despite all that, I went to a baptism and had my hair braided for it. Two girls came over in the morning and started to pull at my hair. After about five rows, my eyes are watering and they ask me if my hair is extentions because it has the feel of mesh. That is never a good sign, which means they are having a hard time braiding my hair in rows. Almost an hour later they were finishing up and all three of us were ready to finish.

All said and done, it looked ok and after two days the pulling pain went away.