To cornbraids and back in 24 hours!

We spent Wednesday at the vocational school on Diocese land in Gulu. Marina, Cris and Andrew moved books that had been stored at the school for the past year while Ellen, Kathy, Bree and I taught a class on women’s health including the reproductive system, pregnancy, menstruation (using the kits from Days for Girls), HIV AIDS, sexual health, and empowerment. It was a fantastic class and the counselor who did the translating was amazing. She obviously had an excellent relationship with her girls.

After our class was through, the van had just left to deliver more books and so we went to sit under the mango tree to wait. I said to Grace that maybe the hairdressing students could do something with my hair such as braid it but it would be very small braids because my hair is so short! Next thing I knew I had the hairdressing instructor, a man, looking at my hair and then fetching a bag of copper coloured hair to make braids. I told him that I had maximum 30 minutes for my hair to be done.

Suddenly I had 12 hands frantically braiding my hair. Ugandan hair normally takes 2 bags of fake hair to make the braids but my head of hair required 5 bags! They kept commenting on how soft my hair is and how much of it I have. Needless to say that it took more than 30 minutes to do. The van returned and the team went to buy a rolex (think roll-eggs) for each of us. That took another hour and by the time they returned I had a nice head of braids.

It was heavy!! I managed to sleep with the braids but I didn’t think I would survive until July 23^rd with them in. The base of my head was sore and when I washed my t-shirt in the bucket, I had to force my head back up with the extra weight! I wore the braids home but decided that I didn’t really like them (I felt like a poser to be honest) so my lovely team agreed to remove them.

I have always wanted cornbraids and Corey has always said that he doesn’t like them. Now I’ve had them and I will never get them again!