WHEN I WAS SMALL, I used to wish that I had soft, curly hair. When children my age was wishing for a TV at home, or wishing that them aint had to carry out sheep on mornings, or wash down pig pens, I used to be wishing that I had soft hair.
You see, I had hair like mathematics; hard hard. I had the kinda hair that used to break out comb teets, I talking bout even them hard plastic comb teets. I aint telling no lies, I bend up afro combs and all. Look, the only thing my mother aint try combing my hair with was a hoe.
And don’t talk bout at the back of my head, down in the neck part, I used to got some knots or choir boys back there. So when I getting my hair combed, and the comb pass through them choir boys, and them start to sing, the amount of noise I used to keep, you would think that somebody was trying to drown a pig.
No lie, my hair was hard, hard and it used to grow fast, so I would be at the barber almost every weekend, but whatever lil bit that grew back in between then used to break out comb teets.
Now I would try to comb my hair myself, but when I finish, my mother or my father would take up the comb and give my head a good combing, til my head used to be sore, so sore that even if wind touch my head, it would feel like somebody slap me ‘cross my head with a lime tree.
And sometimes when my head mash up the big combs, and got them looking like a two-teet old woman, my mother would find a small, lil plastic comb, with some lil fine teets, that only suitable for combing mice, and proceed to comb my hair, including the knots at the back.
But apart from the combing aspect, I realised that at school, the brown skin, curly hair boys and girls used to get treated differently.
When the teacher gine share licks, it used to seem like the knottier your hair was the more licks you would get, and the ones with soft curly hair used to get ‘way with a warning or a slight tap.
My sisters also had the same kinda hair, but they had the luxury of getting it iron. So on weekends, there would be the smell of burning hair in the kitchen as my mother passed the ironing comb through their hair to soften it up. Occasionally you would hear a loud “aye”, as the hot ironing comb touched an ear or the neck.
So yeah, I longed to have soft curly hair. Now some people would say that I wanted to be white, and I would tell them no, I was comfortable in my black skin, but because of the comb, I had a problem with my hair. In other words had not for the comb I didn’t gine got no problem with my knotty hair.
But I realise nowadays, that a lot of women bleaching their skin. In other words, to me they look like they have a problem with the colour of their skin. It might not be a case of them wanting to be white, but it might be a case of them not wanting to be black.
And why is this? Is it because they are ashamed of being black? And if so why?
I had a problem with my hair because of the comb, it would be interesting to find out why they have a problem with their skin. See ya.
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