Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

“So how did you get into cutting hair?”

In the last year and a half, I have heard this question from nearly everyone who has sat in my kitchen chair sporting a stylish black cape.  The jury is still out on whether they’re just striking up a friendly conversation, or concerned about what they will look like when I’m done hacking away with my scissors.  But, I don’t charge for the service, so I’m sure it’s hard to resist.

To answer the question, I’ve cut my husband’s hair ever since we got married, and started cutting my own about ten years ago. I had recently had the best haircut of my life (thanks, Rann!), but at $45 for just the cut, there was no way this seminary student was going to be able to do that every eight weeks.  What can I say?  I’m cheap.  I tried several $12 chain-salon haircuts, but soon decided I could do just as well on my own.  And if I butchered my coif, I could always go running back to Rann to have it expertly doctored.

I also cut the kids’ hair, and the dog’s.  And fortunately for our current community, I had some friends in Texas (equally cheap, apparently) who were my willing guinea pigs before we came to PNG.  To my great surprise, they were all repeat customers, including the sixteen year old boy who generally refused to let anyone touch his curly blonde locks.

I knew that services like haircuts could be hard to come by here, being a community filled with academics, so I brought along my scissors and my willingness to give haircutting a shot, just in case.  I didn’t get past the first three weeks before requests were coming in.

Despite my lack of training, I routinely do anywhere between 3 and 8 haircuts in a normal week.  In the last two and a half weeks, I have had 21 haircuts and a couple of consultations with mothers who want to learn to cut their children’s hair.  Who would have ever guessed?

Last night I cut hair for my friend in the photo above.  The woman has piles of hair.  It had been a while since I cut it last, and, after I finished the trim, I asked her if we had thinned her hair last August.  She said, yes, she thought so, and yes, let’s do it again.  However, with the first snip of the thinning shears, she shrieked, “Sharon!  What are you doing?”

I just laughed.  You’ll never miss it.

I convinced her to trust me and kept on thinning.  She swallowed her fears and let me do my thing.  The picture above was taken when it was all over and she had just gotten a glimpse of the volume of hair on the floor.  She’s laughing behind her hand … really she is.

Though she was happy with her haircut, not everyone has been.  I have had three notable situations over the eighteen months where the person was less than satisfied.  The first was a woman who came to me with super-thick hair, long enough to reach her waist.  She wanted to have enough cut off to donate to “Locks of Love,” and she was headed to the coast for four months of orientation training.  We discussed how stiflingly hot it is at the coast, and how she would want it short enough (and thinned) so that it wasn’t too hot, yet long enough to pull up in a ponytail.  I did what she asked me to do, so I choose to believe that it was the sheer shock of going from waist-length to just-below-the-shoulder-length that caused her very, very pained countenance upon completion of the job.

The second to-be-unhappy customer brought me a picture.  As if that’s not dangerous enough, her words to me were, “This is the closest I can find to what I want.”

That’s very specific, thank you.

I tried as best I could to figure out what she wanted, but apparently I overshot it significantly.  A couple weeks later she apologized for the way she had reacted when I handed her the mirror.  I must be a completely insensitive dolt, though, because I hadn’t even noticed.  Though short, yes, I thought it looked very cute on her. Then, and this is the funny part, she said she forgave me for the haircut.

I don’t think I’ve ever been forgiven for a haircut before.

At least not that I knew about.  :)

Last week, I cut the hair of one of my ten-year old students.  This boy had long, shaggy blonde hair which he had grown out for a school event.  Now that the event was over, Mom was the impetus for him to seek a trim.  Fortunately, she came with him, because he was rather tight-lipped about what he wanted.  That or he was embarrassed to see me in this capacity, one or the other.

Mom tried to glean from him what he was hoping for, and then interpreted for me, adding her own opinion into the mix.  I gave him what she wanted.

But, it was not what he wanted.

His tears broke my heart.

I never thought that a 10-year old boy would care that much about what his hair looked like.  I have cut hair for several teenage boys, many of whom, like my friend in Texas, won’t allow anyone to touch their hair under normal circumstances.  I always felt honored (albeit a bit nervous) that they trusted me to cut it.  But this kid is ten, and shorter in stature than my 8-year old.  I never expected that reaction.  He ended up having it buzzed short.  A bittersweet consolation prize.

Aside from these three dramas, most of my victims, er, clients are happy enough, especially, I suppose, considering the alternatives (no cut, self-cut, spouse-cut, or worse.)

After all, I offer a double-your-money-back guarantee.

Just Go With the Flow

Everyone knows that overseas missionaries are destined to subsist on a diet of roasted insects and fried monkey brains.  It just comes with the territory.

Well, if I’m going to be honest, I have to admit that the most exotic thing we have eaten here in Papua New Guinea is alligator, and we prepared that.  For sure, there are some nationals who eat items less appealing to our Western appetites.  For example, there is a common joke (or is it a joke?) around here that if you’re invited to a mumu (celebratory feast), the main course may very well be cat.

But, no.  Our wildest culinary encounters have not been cooked over an open fire.

They’ve come in packages.

Take crackers for instance.  If you were to walk through any PNG grocery store, you might led to believe that the diet of all PNGians consists solely of tinned meat and crackers.  No kidding.  Crackers make up an amazing percentage of the stock of every store I’ve ever been in.

You’d think that crackers would be harmless enough, right?  Well, check out the ingredients in the picture above: “Edible vegetable oil, Edible salt, Edible ammonium bicarbonate, Edible flavouring …”

As if the Commonwealth spelling wasn’t disconcerting enough, you also have to contend with several other uncertainties.  I mean, the list definitely begs the question: if these four components are edible, what about the other eleven?  Am I taking my life in my hands by ingesting Cream flavoured “1+1 Soda Sandwich” crackers?

And what is this Ghee oil thing?  I looked up the word “ghee” and found that it actually has a definition:  “Clarified butter used in Indian cookery.”  Even though these crackers were not manufactured in India, they do come from the same continent.  And I am very glad to know that this butter is clarified.  Edible or not, I certainly wouldn’t want to eat vague butter, that’s for sure. 

Sixteen months ago we were living in a village setting, complete with river bathing, water-hauling, and a grass and bamboo hut.  Interestingly enough, one of the most popular PNG-manufactured snacks is actually very reminiscent of a treat from back home.  The Twisties, cheese flavoured variety, rivals crunchy Cheetos in nearly every respect.  It seems strange, but I actually met someone who claimed she had to take a goodly number of Twisties bags home with them on furlough to satisfy their PNG-raised children.  Cheetos were, of course, inadequate.

Anyway, drinking the water we were drinking, and bathing in the water we were bathing in, we weren’t surprised that most of our, er, bowel movements were, shall we say, less than firm.  The problem actually plagued us for most of the time we were in the village, but near the end of our time there, we made a startling discovery. 

Twisties snacks come in several varieties, including Chicken flavor, Cheese and Onion, and Barbeque.  Those are okay, but the Pizza flavor had become a favorite.   Then we read the back of the bag.

The ingredients list contains enticing components such as “cheese powder, … natural & nature identical flavours, … and parsley granules food acid (330).”  (I do wonder if they’re missing a comma in last ingredient.)  The final item on the list, however, was at the same time somewhat frightening and surprisingly enlightening.

You ready for this?

“Free flow agent (551).”

I kid you not.  I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried. 

Yessiree, like the slogan says, “Life is fun with Twisties!”

Investigating the rest of the bag sheds no light on this odd discovery.  Instead it reveals even more quandaries … such as, “Why would a product made and marketed exclusively in Papua New Guinea be labeled in English and French?   (For those who are interested, the component in question is translated, “agent fluidifiant (551).”)

Fortunately, discoveries like this are not restricted to ingestible products.  Nor are they always frightening.  Occasionally we find one that provides hours of entertainment.

Take, for example, the shampoo bottle in our shower.  The one Paul is using.  (Me?  I lucked out and found some Indonesian-manufactured Pantene PRO-V, but considering the price and limited availability, have forbidden him to touch it.)

I can’t tell you where this product was made.  No, really, I can’t.  That information, if it is there at all, is in a language I do not recognize.  What I can tell you, thanks to the company’s fine interpreters, is that this particular bottle is of the following variety:  “Ocean Element Beauty fair.”   Where my Pantene bottle says “Smooth & Silky,” this bottle of mystery goo goes on to say, “Nourishment Moisture, Twinkling of Hair.”

Now, I ask you, who wouldn’t want Twinkling of Hair?  These people have secured a corner in a very competitive market.

Paul chuckled and was satisfied with this, and knowing that it couldn’t be all bad to have hair that shimmered like stars in the night sky, didn’t bother to read any further.  But had he turned the powder-blue container over, he would have discovered a great treasure trove of Engrish on the back.  And I quote …

“Contain the bright hair vegetable, vitamin of meek essence original b5, etc., can be overall the depth nursing hair at the time of go to a scraps, make the show deliver the meek and bright.”

Oooooooh … that’s good.

But, wait!  There’s more!

“All new negative ion essence, …”

(This is a relief, because I’ve heard that second-hand negative ion essence isn’t nearly as effective at containing the bright hair vegetable.)

“ … keep show hair from be subjected to the static electricity interference, be easy to comb, full of flexibility.”

Scraps-destined, nursing hair that delivers meek and bright.  Easy to comb, flexible, and not subjected to static electricity interference.  You know, I don’t even know what to say to that. 

How can one possibly improve on perfection?

Avacados and Self-Reflection

Several weeks ago, a Papua New Guinean friend of ours brought us three young avocado trees.  We had asked her for one, but she brought three, hoping that “at least one would make it.”  The smaller two had been attacked by some kind of parasite, and the laciness of their leaves indicated a probable transplantation failure.  The leaves on the largest (about two and a half feet tall), however, were unaffected by these bugs, and seemed to promise sure success.   Paul planted them, and since then has tended and watered them religiously.

Within just a couple of weeks, the middle-sized one (we’ll call it “Specimen B”) died a rapid, unglorified death.  Its wilted, black excuse for a twig still stands in our yard, mostly, I suppose, as a monument to our laziness.

“Specimen A,” the largest one, the one that seemed to hold the most promise, has stagnated.  It lost a few leaves (not unexpected, considering the transplant), and the top of its “trunk” blackened; the leaves it still possesses, though large and bug-free, hang limp and hapless.  It doesn’t change much from day to day, or even react to the sun as it passes overhead.

Interestingly enough, the smallest one (“Specimen C”), from the very beginning, has been the most courageous, the most curious, the most acutely inspirational.

Standing only about a foot high, this unremarkable twig bore about four leaves, or at least what was left of them, when Tina brought it to our house.  (The insects must have thought this one was particularly delicious.)  Once Paul put it in the ground, every morning, without fail, this pitiful young tree would stretch to its full 12 inches and bend its hole-laden leaves toward the burning ball of gas as it crossed the sky.  Every time I looked at it, I could just hear it urgently crying out in its squeaky little botanical voice,

“I’m trying!”

It made me laugh, that little stick.  By late afternoon, it was always sagging, exhausted, beaten down by the tropical sun.  But the next morning it would stretch again, attempting everything within its power to regain full health.

Despite its best efforts, however, its leaves dropped off one by one until there was just one left, hanging precariously near the top of the stick.

The day I saw Evan and his friends playing in the yard near the little tree, I didn’t think much of it.  Evan knows how badly his daddy wants the avocados to grow.  He wouldn’t do anything to hurt them.  His friend, Michael, however, wasn’t aware of the importance of this little tree.

In fact, he wasn’t even aware it WAS a little tree.

The boys were playing barefoot, in appropriate PNG fashion, and at one point Michael walked over to the “stick” and put his toes around it.

“Oh, Michael, be careful!  Don’t do that.  That’s Mr. Paul’s ….”

Schwoop.

Even as he looked at me as if to figure out what I could possibly be getting onto him about, his toes, still gripping the feeble trunk, swept up and off the top of the tree … taking the last remaining leaf with them.

“… that was Mr. Paul’s tree.”   *sigh*

We didn’t know if a stick with no leaves would grow … it could get water, yes, but photosynthesis was now out of the question.  Yet, having observed that this tree was a fighter, we left it there to see what would happen.

Within days there were leaf buds, and now, a few weeks later, that little trooper has eighteen leaves – none of which have any insect damage.

Amazing.

As I was trying to figure out how to graciously and discretely re-enter the blogging arena, this saga caught my attention.  Because I feel like an avocado tree.  Or, I should say, over the nineteen months we have been in PNG, I have had times where I felt like each of the three specimens.

Occasionally I have been Specimen B … refusing to engage with the soil and water around me.  Choosing instead to be alone and lonely.  Only Grace kept me from blackening and wilting to nothingness during those times.

At other times, I have been Specimen A.  Pretty healthy when I arrived, but in some ways wishing I was still “back home.”  Only minimally engaged with my surroundings.  Stagnating.  Not dead, but not truly living either.  Droopy, pathetic.

I have considered my one-year absence from blogging from many angles, wondering why I have gone twelve months without investing in the art of creative writing.  Finally, yesterday, it dawned on me … at POC, I had no way to find out about friends back home, I had very little contact with family and loved ones stateside.  Over the few months following our move to the highlands, however, I realized the accessibility of Facebook.  Suddenly I was a part of things back home again, more or less.  I think that for most of the last year, I have been only nominally engaged with my immediate surroundings, at least emotionally.   Instead of insightfully putting into words snippets of life here, I have instead tried to live vicariously through the comments of people back home: who’s having a baby, who’s sick, funny things your kids have said, politics, quips that cleverly personify inanimate objects, Snowmageddon 2011, and the like.  I have frequently experienced a desperation to know what is going on back home, to feel connected, and have chosen to mindlessly read the status updates of a few hundred friends rather than invest what it takes to capture pieces of my life here in words for the many who will never experience this life, or at least for the few who care.

But, after watching this perennial woody plant fight its way through difficult (and, at times, seemingly impossible) circumstances, I now realize that I want to be more like him - not losing sight of where I’ve come from, and yet, fully engaging the soil and water around me.  Stretching my leaves to their full potential every day and soaking in the sun.

So, that said, after a year hiatus, I am going to do my best to spend less time on Facebook (missing everyone,  wishing I was back home, feeling left out, jealous of the snowstorms you’d rather not be having), and more time with my word processor, sharing pieces of my life in Papua New Guinea with you.

Like Peering Through a Mist

“We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!”    ~1 Corinthians 13:12, The Message

The sound was haunting as I turned up the bush-lined dirt driveway.  Unsure of exactly where to go or what to say when I got to the house, each step was like slogging through wet concrete – I knew if I didn’t keep going, I was likely to get stuck, trapped by fear of the unknown.

A few women stood the front of the house; many others had gone in to where the body had been laid … where the wailing was concentrated.  Behind the house I could see some men and a few ladies.  As I walked toward the back with my grocery sacks (rice, tinned fish, coffee, toilet paper … just a few things to help provide for the mourners that would be at the haus krai (crying house) around-the-clock in the coming days), I noticed a man standing by himself near the door.

“Excuse me, do you know if Freddie is here?” I asked in Tok Pisin, the main trade language of PNG.

“Yes,” the gentle-faced man replied, also in Tok Pisin.  He offered a slight smile.  “I’m his father.  Let me get him for you.”

As he turned to go, my head spun and I quickly processed what this meant.  If this man is Freddie’s father, then he is also the father of Bettie, Freddie’s fourteen-year-old sister … the one who had a heart attack and died last night.

“Sir,” I spoke quickly, reaching out toward him, feeling that I shouldn’t let him, or the moment, get away.  “I’m Sharon, one of Freddie’s teachers.  I am so very sorry about your daughter …”

I probably stand six inches taller than Orava, but it wasn’t awkward when he hugged me, grateful that I had come.  Along with the time I subsequently spent with Freddie, it was one of the most precious moments I had had since coming to Papua New Guinea.

A few minutes later, while talking to my student, I said, “I lost a brother a few years ago.  It was very difficult.  So, I don’t know exactly, but I think I understand a little bit of what you’re going through.”

Though he had not been crying when he came out of the house, as I prayed for him, I could tell that this adorable boy, hardworking student, kind friend to others, brother of Bettie, was sniffling.  Then it hit me:

“God comforts us in our weaknesses so that we might comfort others.”

Several minutes later I entered the front of the house to pay my condolences to Leah, their mother.  The small living area was lined with people, mostly women, sitting along the walls.  All of the furniture, except for the couch holding Bettie’s body, had been moved out to allow for maximum capacity.  About a dozen more people – men and women – surrounded her, many wailing, most crying.  Bettie had been born with a heart defect which, regardless of her level of privilege, had unfortunately been inoperable, and now her time had come.  The girl was beautiful – without the pale blue hue fairer-skinned people take on after death.  Aside from the muscle stiffness made obvious as people stroked her and tried to hold on to her hands and fingers, Bettie could very well have just been sleeping peacefully.

But she had better things to do.

Less than an hour before her heart attack, Bettie had been worshiping at the weekly youth group meeting … squinting in a fog, peering through a mist.  Experiencing but a foretaste of the pure joy on which she was soaring now.

A few minutes after I left the house, I found a beautiful moth on the ground, his wings gently opening and closing.  I placed my finger under his feet and he crawled on, allowing me to carry him as I proceeded toward the Primary Campus for my morning class.  While I walked, I studied his velvet black wings with their bright orange stripes and fluorescent blue and purple spots.  Surely, days ago, I thought to myself, he, too, was experiencing life through a fog, bound to this earth by stubby little legs.  

Then, as I stood in the middle of the road, transfixed by his gracefulness, he lifted off and flew breezily, freely, into the sky.

(This entry was originally published in our January 2011 newsletter.)