African Hair Styles

African hair comes pretty much in two varieties - straight as sticks and brittle or kinky-curly. This makes it very difficult to work with. The Africans have learned to do beautiful things with their hair in spite of the challenges.

When we first came to Botswana we tried to learn womens' names by remembering their hair styles and soon learned that was disastrous. A woman would have long, beautifully-plaited hair one week and would have hair 1 cm long or her head shaved completely the next week. We learned that we needed to completely rely on facial features, not hair styles. They still throw us a bit when they have a radical style change and sometimes we have to look at them carefully to recognize them.

Sometimes it takes two hours to get hair plaited. Frequently, we see it getting done under the shade of a tree or in an open-air shop. Hair extensions are sewn in or braided in.

Even little girls get their hair plaited. Their mothers say they will sit patiently for a hair stylist to do it but they would never sit that long for their mothers to do it.

It boggles our minds how they can do the very tiny cornrows. The women say sometimes it really hurts because the stylists pull it so tight. Some hair stylists are more gentle than others so they are careful who they have do it. Sometimes you see girls scratching or slapping their heads to try and make it feel better after getting their hair done.

They tell us they can get their hair to grow longer if it is braided because it does not break so easily. They have to have their hair redone about every three or four weeks. This makes for a constant variety of attractive hair styles.