A hair raising experience

Getting a haircut can be a tricky issue at the best of times – it may take several attempts to find a good salon, in a convenient area, at the right price and most importantly, building a relationship of trust with the stylist. It usually goes that you try somebody out for the first time with something simple like a trim, and if you’re happy with that, then you advance to having a more daring cut and eventually may try out a bolder colour. So having been here in Kampala for roughly 2 months the time had come to get a little snip. I’d had a few recommendations from friends, but being the creature of impulse that I am, I decided that I would have my hair chopped there and then. So I breeze confidently into Sparkles salon and demand a pedicure and a haircut. One of the ‘features’ of a Sparkles pedicure is a little foot and leg massage, which should send you into a state of relaxation, however, this guy decided to pummel the living daylights out of my poor legs and I would not be surprised if I had a bruise to show for it in the morning. I survived this little ordeal though and then went to wait to get a haircut. I was escorted to a seat and before I had even said what I wanted doing, this guy was brandishing a pair of scissors, with an evil glint in his eyes. I politely ask him if he can wash my hair – simple enough, you would think. At the sink, I am exposed to alternately scalding and freezing water and he then proceeds to tip what feels like an entire bottle of shampoo over my hair and washes it with as much care as though he was scrubbing the kitchen floor. After that, with clean but wild hair I am then taken back to my seat. Conveniently, my gym pass has a photo of me taken just after having my hair cut in Colombia, so I show him and explain that I would like it cut in pretty much the same way. He nods in an assuring manner picks up a comb. As my hair is such a tangled mess, this really hurts, so I ask him if he would mind if I combed it myself, which I do. He then grabs what looks like a a toilet roll and ties it round my neck, apparently to protect me from hair going down me. Then for the cut. And this is the really horrifying part. He starts chopping into the back, which naturally I can’t see. By the time he gets round to the side I notice his technique for cutting is a little bit unorthodox. Although I have never in my life attended a hairdressing course, I am aware that in order to cut layers you need to take sections of hair in a neat and even way and to use your fingers to help guide the scissors. No, no, no! He ‘sections’ my hair by taking random bunches and then just snipping in. I can’t stand any more of this, so I ask him how he learned to cut hair and he just ignores me. My next question is whether he took a course or if he learnt on the job and at this point he slams the comb and scissors down on the counter and says he doesn’t want to talk about it. This has now become too much for me, so I stand up, remove the overall and am fully prepared to walk out with half cut hair. I walk up to the counter and say I will pay for the pedicure but the hair experience was out of control. I am fully expecting for a full on debate, but to my surprise, the ladies on reception were in full sympathy with me. One of them told me that she just keeps her hair short and natural and is afraid to let anybody touch it – not really the best advert for a salon, but reassuring nonetheless. They were very kind and told me somebody else would be along shortly to sort it all out. So second time lucky (well it’s not perfect, but al least it’s even and nobody went wild and shaved my head). Having said that I have just realised that nobody has shown me the back of my head yet, so who knows what lurks behind. All I can say now is that I will not be returning for a repeat performance and that if that was a traumatic hair experience, then it has more than put me off the though of having my bikini line waxed there!

Get thee to a nunnery

According to the Bradt guide to Uganda ‘Patience is not so much a virtue in Fort Portal as a positive means to survival’. This certainly turned out to be the case this weekend. A friend and I have been going on the running hash each week. This involves going for a run for roughly an hour, with several stops along the way, often for refreshments in the form of beer. After the run are the hash rituals, the group gathers in a circle and they choose some ‘sinners’ who have to be punished. This can be for anything from chatterbox (some people are talking on the phone on the way) to the hashit – who may, for example, have turned up somewhere very late, then has the dubious honour of having to run the following week with a toilet seat around their neck. New shoes are always recognised and the owner has to take one off and then drink beer out of the shoe. So it’s all in the spirit of good fun, and with this in mind, we decided to go away for the weekend with the group to Fort Portal.

Very early on Saturday morning I was rudely awakened by my friend calling me, to ask if I was ready. I panicked and realised I had forgotten to set the alarm when I came in at 2am the previous evening. So I dressed at rapid speed, grabbed my backpack and left the house ten minutes later. When we arrived at the National Theatre to get the bus we discovered that a few people hadn’t yet arrived. So we waited and waited and waited some more, and eventually hit the road well over an hour after the agreed departure time. After getting through the busy Saturday morning traffic in Kampala we reached the open road and we were impressed by the smooth and relatively pot-hole free roads. That is until we got our first puncture. I say first because it was the first of five. So the first one was fixed fairly quickly and we set off again feeling quite optimistic. Ten minutes later we had another puncture. Watching them repair the puncture was a little bit worrying as the jack was not big enough, so they just rested the bus on a couple of big rocks. Luckily nothing untoward happened. Anyway, to cut a long story short, the 300 km journey took us roughly 9 hours, which means that we averaged a speed of 30km an hour, which is pretty damned slow.

We arrived around 5.30pm, so had to change quickly and get going on the run as soon as we could, in order to get back before it went dark. Fort Portal is west of Kampala and it just at the foot of the Rwenzori Mountains. So we had a great view along the way, passing through lots of small villages whilst contending with many great big hills. Now I have a confession to make – I make a great downhill runner, I can cope with the flat bits, but am totally useless when it comes to running uphill, and unfortunately there are many hills in Uganda. The peak of the run was at King Oyo’s palace, ruler of the kingdom of Toro – the king is actually the youngest in the country and is a year 12 student at my school, who my house mate actually teaches. Now this boy has a few big decisions to make when he hits 18. Apparently the area is very rich in oil and natural resources which have not yet been exploited, so he has to choose between making a very poor area very wealthy, or maintaining the natural beauty of the local environment. I am certainly glad that I am not in his shoes. Now back to the run. We picked up an extra friend when we arrived there, a local guy, who decided that he wants to move to Kampala, just to join the hash, and came along for a part of the run, complete with guitar. He didn’t quite manage to run all the way though – he was later spotted on a boda boda – cheating! At the end of the run a couple of our friends were nominated as sinners as they abandoned our bus on the second puncture and opted for a matatu instead, which in actual fact only saved them half an hour in the end.

Later that evening we were bussed over to our hotel for the night, only to be greeted by a nun! Yes – we actually stayed in a convent for the night, and to make matters worse, we had paid extra money for this privilege. The ‘hotel’ room was very sparse, but it had hot showers and clean bed linen, so we were reasonably happy for the night. We then went back to the nice hotel for a few drinks and a party. We shocked the nuns by being the first back as we were so exhausted after the long journey and the chaotic day.

On the whole the trip was very poorly organised. Nobody told us that there was a run on the Sunday morning, and nobody seemed sure of what time we would leave to return to Kampala. This disturbed both of us, as we had hoped to be able to visit some crater lakes nearby and really make the most of the time away. You can imagine that this was frustrating as we are both from countries where things usually run on time and have some kind of schedule, and not only that, but both of us being teachers, we are used to organising trips down to every last detail. Needless to say, they have not heard the last of this, and we are determined that if we ever go away with the group again, that we will organise our own transport and be much more independent. The journey back was much smoother, but I was sitting next to a guy who started drinking beer at 10am and was very loud all along the way. So after many pee stops along the way we finally made it back to Kampala. Oh the joys of travel!