Salon

The barber at my favourite salon doesn’t believe in Covid-19.

The whole world knows it’s happening. The entire country has been instructed to wear masks in public – our first delicate defence against the growing plague – but he sticks out his chin, squares his shoulders and says: “There’s no such thing as corona”.

I didn’t know the barber as a child but, for a second, I see his younger self standing there plain as anything. A smirking, stubborn and bleskop little thing unafraid of ghosts, ghouls or the dark.

To underscore his ludicrous beliefs, the barber doesn’t bother wearing one.

The rest of us are breathing shallowly behind cloth, surgical and makeshift barriers but the barber inhales freely. The medley of relaxer, Argan oil and the burnt aroma of a wash-and-blow seemingly delighting his unhindered senses.

My mother has told me not to linger so I don’t take the bait.

I’ve dashed in with freshly washed hair so my hairdresser Josephine can get my cornrows done in a record 15 minutes and I feel guilty, stupid and even hypocritical enough without starting a brawl.

That and I’ve already been in one that week.

A strange man was following me around the national gallery as I did my weekly review and had zero qualms about trying to dredge up some conversation mere inches from my face. Social distance markers pasted carefully on the floor be damned.

Maybe he doesn’t believe in coronavirus either.

If I ever see him again, I’ll tell him where to find the barber so they can breathe on each other to their heart’s content.

“There’s no such thing as corona.”

Oh, but there is.

Josephine says most people didn’t come back after lockdown restrictions were lifted. She says people are scared, broke or both and no amount of discounts, specials and mask wearing has made them return.

Before coronavirus, women didn’t visit the salon the way they used to.

Not the way they would when I was a kid sitting under a standing hair drier in my mother’s salon wincing below the tug of big, bright green rollers and the heat.

From my feet-dangling perch, I’d watch week-worn aunties burst through the door.

They’d traipse in with a bag of snacks and sometimes something stronger diluted in the can of Coke they’d sip on as hairdressers untangled, moisturised and soothed with every braid, twist or blow dry, their noses slightly wrinkled by the acrid smell of Dark & Lovely hair relaxer ever in the air.

Beautified and beaming, the women would dawdle in the small parlour near the entrance reading dog-eared magazines, making grand plans, securing small loans or sharing snippets about the town’s cheats, sex fiends and scandals.

There was less of this before coronavirus.

Now many black women embrace maintaining their natural hair. Others dash in to drop extensions off for a wig and simply collect it a day or two later and more often than not Josephine gets to work on a swarm of decapitated plastic heads.

I call the crowd of wig mannequins that always surround Josephine in a glamour of bobs, coloured bangs and inches her “friends” and she laughs, but weeks later, they’re gone.

Coronavirus has scared everyone away. Scared them with disease and with the thought of spending money on hair when all around people are losing their jobs, income and security.

Before the lockdowns and the escalating cases and the death, my hairdresser would clock in at 07h00 to keep up with her wig-making, walk-ins and appointments. Now she doesn’t come in unless someone secures her for an appointment and even then Josephine confirms, reconfirms and checks again so as not to waste the transport money.

Last week The Namibian reported that the minister ofhealth and social services said four of Windhoek’s new positive cases work in the same salon and advised “salon workers must wear masks at all times”.

Twirling a relatively fresh braid, I read the words with a shudder and wonder if the disbelieving barber saw the story.

“There’s no such thing as corona…”

Oh, but, dear barber, there is.

– martha@namibian.com.na; Martha Mukaiwa on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram; marthamukaiwa.com

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