How things have changed. I have been on a hunting mission for a barber since my ‘executive kinyozi’ succumbed to an unrelenting debt burden that has now confined him to inflation. Three times, I have found myself stretched out, looking up at a woman busy over me. Yes, it’s the era of the female barber. Recently, I popped my head into this Kinyozi, where some chick was moist-wiping cabinets. ‘Wapi kinyozi,’ I ask matter-of-factly, with an I-got-to-get-this-done-with-ASAP air.
She looks at me bemusedly and responds with a knowing look. ‘Ni mimi.’ That slightly knocks the wind off the sails of what clearly smacked of chauvinistic vainglory. She beckons and I meekly follow and plant my backside on the barber chair. It’s disconcerting though, like a sheep that’s just checked itself into an abattoir, resigned to the fate of gracing a big-bellied politician’s breakfast table as bacon.
‘How do you want it,’ my lady kinyozi asks innocently. Now that’s something you don’t hear from a jamaa kinyozi and even if he lets it slip, it wouldn’t as much as raise an eyebrow. I choke on my snide remark and quickly haul my head out of the gutter as I raise my face to meet her unassuming businesslike mien. What a way to crash the clever Dick in me!
But you can’t blame me. We’ve been socialized that men will clip our hair and beards, then the ladies will have their way with us at the sink, washing our bumpy crowns and top it all with a good rub-down on the shoulders and tensed noggins. And if there was ever any shaving to be done by a woman, it was never at the top of our anatomy, but rather on some part much lower!
But I have to admit that having a woman to bare it all for you, I mean clean-shave your balding cranium and caress off prickly stubbles, is not without its ‘perks.’ You don’t have to put up with the foul smell of cheap liquor every time the barber mouths something about United losing its flair on the pitch and position as the best team in Manchester.
With a woman working on your head (ahem!), you get enveloped in a whiff of fragrance, even if hers is not designer perfume. And whenever she presses against you for a closer shave of those hard-to-reach-areas, you don’t pull back in apprehensive horror. There’s no bracing yourself for the savage scrapping of your chin with calloused hands doused in methylated spirit either.
Women are quite the quiet shavers, gentle and naturally soft. You wave off their occasional ‘ninakuumiza?’ question with a negative grunt, eyes closed as you drift off to a fleeting bliss. And there’s nothing awkward about your eyes locking when she’s bent over your face for a sensitive snip. But damn it if it’s a man! It’s a taboo for men look into each other’s eyes when shaving. That’s why we close our eyes throughout the process, even doze off until it’s done.
The irony of it all is that it may be easy for men to trust their hearts with a woman, but not their heads. Or are there already murmurs of approval, indicating this is the time for ‘marmers?’
@omondipaul
