Insert 3: Hair, High School and other Stories.

The following is a journal entry I wrote on the 2nd of April 2022. By then, I had decided to do a brush cut* instead of going completely bald. This entry describes my thoughts and high school stories about hair.

This morning, I examined my face and hair in front of the mirror. My hairline is not straight, adding to the worries of the fast-approaching haircut day. I also wonder what would happen if the barber cut my hair bald by mistake. Those things happen. It happened to my cousin.

Tshepo told me about his barber who once cut him bald by accident. He had requested a completely different haircut. The following week, he returned to school wearing a beanie. When his friends questioned him, he tried to explain what had happened. He shook his head in disappointment, remembering what had happened.

Another thing I often saw at school was how boys made fun of each other for having bald heads. This one boy, Mark, cut his hair bald and was wearing a beanie. The other boys tried to grab the beanie off his head, then laughed at him. He giggled at himself too.

This was not just an occurrence among males, but us girls too. I attended an all-girls primary school. Sometimes, girls would shave all their hair off. This was often not by choice but caused by circumstances such as a medical condition. There was so much shame from it. Girls would be teased and mocked. Tears were shed. It became so bad that, although the school had previously strictly prohibited beanies during summer, they began to allow them.

I’m back in front of the mirror, staring at myself. I observe that my scalp and my face are two different colours. My scalp is lighter than my face. That’s another concern of mine. This is because the face is exposed to the sun while the hair covers the scalp. I do not want that. I think I’ll go with a brush cut, a cut where only the roots of the hair remain.

Father, may my self-esteem increase before this haircut. Amen.

Signing out

2 April 2022

*A brush cut is a type of haircut in which the hair on the top of the head is cut short in every dimension. [wiki]