What I learned about weaves

Once upon a time, way back in a land called Bafia, I considered the idea of shaving my head.  Knowing that this was a drastic change to make, I decided to wait until IST.  If I still wanted to shave my head after IST, then I'd definitely go ahead and do it. 

Well, IST came and went, and I was telling my fellow beach-goers on our last day in Limbe about these plans and how I no longer had the desire to shave my head.  But of course, that only sparked excitement.  Everybody decided right then and there that I should chop off all my hair, and it didn't take long before i was totally on board with the idea. (If all of your friends tell you to jump off a bridge...err...i mean...something like that.) 

The scissors and comb were ready to go, but since it was our last night at the beach, we needed to get one last swim in.  We got in from the beach around 11PM, and while I was showering I was secretly hoping that everybody had forgotten about the hair-cutting.  Nope, not the case!  Edith, who I had only met a few days before, had the scissors in hand and was ready to cut away! 
 
Anyways, let's skip forward a bit.  Now I have a lot less hair.  Well actually, that's not true.  I still have a lot of hair, it just happens to be in a ponytail inside of a plastic bag in my suitcase instead of on my head.  

Back in the States, I had always wanted to donate my hair to some sort of cancer charity.  Now that I'm in Cameroon, what am I going to do with it?  I'm going to sell it!  Or at least that's what the plan was.  The lady at the hotel reception desk told me I could make 150,000CFA ($300!!!) by selling my bundle of hair.  Excited at first, I quickly learned this was not the case.  Never the less, I was going to try!    

My buddy Matt came along for the adventure, walking with me from salon to salon in Yaounde.  

The first few salons told us that, yes, we do feel how nice and soft it is, but the boss is out and she probably wouldn't buy it even if she were here.  After getting this response three times, I no longer was taking this hair-selling mission seriously, and it became more of an experiment.  

Eventually along our walk, we came across a beauty school!  The boss-lady was in fact there, and she was incredibly nice and explained to me why I would have trouble selling my hair.  Here is what I learned:

Cameroonians love weaves, there is no doubt about that.  Cameroonian women are also willing to spend big bucks for nice human hair.  However, salons usually buy this hair imported from Europe and already made into a weave.  My hair, which is a bit more than a foot long in the ponytail, would be a good length if it was already turned into a weave.  However, it is not.  The ends would have to be treated and basically folded under themselves in order for someone to attach it to their head.  This would cut the length of my ponytail in half, making the weave very short (and no Cameroonian woman likes short hair, as I learned very quickly since my own haircut!).  Furthermore, it appears that nobody in Yaounde has the necessary machine to turn the ends into a weave.  Therefore, it would be very difficult to sell. 

The lady took my number and told me that she would ask her students if they would want to buy it to practice or experiment with, or maybe to use as extensions, but that the most I would be able to sell it for is 40,000CFA (she never did call back).  She was quite certain that I would have better luck selling it in Garoua, because "there are cows up North, and where there are cows, there is money!"  I haven't tried this yet, and don't know that I will.  Either way, it has been a fun adventure!  Matt and I had a lot of laughs, and I learned more than I ever thought I would know about weaves!