Category: Travel

There’s a cultural, regional shift happening around the world. It’s showing up in a lot of places, including right here in our lovely locks. With the democratization of information, many people have access to heaps of information. Articles, music, videos, photos and cinema. The West has a solid hold on a lot of that information and distribution power, which is influencing much of the digital and sociophysical landscapes.

But fair to say, a result of globalized media is globalized culture. We are connected with each other in so many ways, it’s inevitable that we begin to desire and adapt our behavior and fashion by what we see–even if it’s physically, very far away.

I left my hair straightener, dryer and potions of lotions at home, during my December trip to Botswana. My follicles flew freely. But my hair became quite the philosophical topic of conversation. People kept calling me “white” in Africa, local friends and otherwise. I’d put my arm next to theirs, compare skintone and sometimes be darker than the accuser.

“You have white hair,” they’d always say.. I didn’t have “African” hair and I didn’t have “Asian” hair. I had European hair, so I was white.

My new South African friend Lucky, (above), said, “Africans will always look at your hair first,” to guess where you might be from. Commentary usually followed by mention of my “white” eyes, noes, forehead and other white features.

Only later did I learn about the mega-hair-wave market that hacks off pounds of Indian hair to into African weaves. Watch Chris Rock’s documentary, Good Hair. It is actually a very well researched, articulate, opinionated, educational, pointed and hilarious film. He exposes the billion dollar business of pain and suffering to tame the tresses. But why? For what reason have these women decided to put thousands of dollars a month to make their hair look smooth, flowing and shiny like their European sisters?

http://youtu.be/1m-4qxz08So

I tucked that question away until I got to Japan. Here, in Tokyo, women and men with seemingly beautiful, straight, shiny black hair mutate their natural style. I see (unnaturally) blonde and brunette Japanese men and women. Though I am staying in a cosmopolitan fashion district. I presume people are much more likely to make the self-expressive dye-job leap. But, I want to know why.

I want to know more about Western culture. I want to know more about Japanese culture. I want to know more about African culture and I want to know what media these people consume. Online, on TV, on the radio, in magazines and in advertising.

I want to know what happens in their minds when they wake up in the morning and decide, “This looks good. I want to look like this.” Why does the West have a hegemonic hold on hair culture? Or does it? Is there a silent, cultural, confirmation that European culture is the highest of high fashion? Is there an unspoken agreement in Tokyo or Cape Town when locals make minor mutations to their image?

I don’t know.

But I’d like to find out.

What happens to a community when they are all of a sudden flooded with mountains of new information? It gets localized and appropriated. And behavior changes and former generations remember the good ‘ol days. To whom does the responsibility belong?

I never really thought much about my hair culture until very recently. I’m as guilty of mutation as any of the women and men pictured above. My hair has been red, green blue, purple and once or twice, blonde on accident in a few spots. All the while I’ve applied dangerous amounts of heat to my hair daily for a more ‘orderly’ look that frizzes up at the mention of moisture in the air. So where does this leave us? Does the West have ah old on hair or is it just a horse of different color?

All was quiet on the digital front. I spent 33 days in Botswana and South Africa detached from email and completely disconnected from Facebook and Twitter. Try it.

People I know who go to Afrika seem to consistently have “life changing, inspiring, indescribable” experiences. I did too, which is a little boring for you, the reader. I went with dear friend, Sam who is preparing her PhD Thesis in HCI. I like to say she’s studying the ways we, try to develop Afrika with Western technology culture, thereby screwing up. I was visiting my lifelong friend Peter (below) who is living in Gaborone, Botswana and doing research, I suppose, for my thesis.

We did not go to Afrika to ride in wooden boats and see animals. We did not go to “fix the aids problem” and we did not exit through the gift shop.

We did what what we do when we go anywhere. We  hopped the velvet ropes and went to Afrika to meet people. We walked the pace of their life as best we could and learned about humanity, exploration and ourselves.

Kind new friends granted us Setswana names. Sam’s name, Botho, loosely means humanness, with respect, dignity and kindess. My non-traditional hair, colour and features gave me the name Bontle: beautiful.

I’ve been to India more times than I can count. It’s hot, noisy, crowded and not very safe, kind of like all the places we went in Botswana and South Africa. When I go to India, I cannot wake up and think, “I’d like to walk East today and maybe, possibly visit this part of the city,” knowing full well I’ll get distracted, make two friends along the way and discover something I could not have even known existed. I can’t go on that walk when staying with my grandparents. But there is nowhere else in the universe I can hear the stories they have to tell.

But Sam and I did that wanderlust traveling. One day we even wandered our way  all the way to the top of Kgale Hill.

We wandered our way into a drum circle. Moving by and with music is the only way I know how to listen. I started playing music before I could write a sentence, as one should. Without an exchange a single word, I hopped into a drum circle ont he street with my new friends. They taught me their beats, their rhythms, their language, without a word: and we jammed.

Sometimes, we rode in the back of a pickup truck. Why? Because that’s how we got around the village. Ask me know long we knew the people driving the truck. 2 minutes. Ask me if we actually knew them. We didn’t. Ask me if we were hitchhiking. We weren’t. Because if we were, my friends would probably get fired from their job–not that there was any other option.

But us two Londoners at heart, flew through our city and indulged in Wagamama that otherwise only seemed to exist in dreams. We stopped in Heathrow, in the city where I spent so many days of my life, wandering around, looking for something more and finding it. It was city that taught me how to do it on my own, and there I was back again.

I’ll tell you this, though. The Batswana people can cook but it’s near impossible to get an invitation over for dinner–unless you make the right friends. If someone can teach me to make chicken, squash or collard greens like this, please leave a comment.

And Zac was with us. He was here from Uganda. And needless to say, like us, he made a new friend everywhere he went.

Sam and I did take some time apart. We both jumped, well, tumbled, or fell, really, out of an airplane 10,000 feet above the Earth at the Southern most tip of Africa. It took me 7 pages of free writing to begin processing the rest of my life after that moment.

I’m back home now, zero feet away from the Earth. Driving my car instead of taking the combi.

I’m back home now, where the white people are not people donning a “white face” parade costume.

I’m back home now, where I am not ordering ostrich, kudu, springbok or crocodile to eat.

I’m back home now, very far from a huge body of water.

I am back home now, where the roads are roads and the roads are clean.

But, I love where I live. And I might not ever eat a leg of chicken and dance at the same time again. But, I’ll have done it.

We are grateful for all the real friendships we made and opportunities to experience a Southern Afrikan lifestyle as best we could. This is 2% how I spent one of the most enlightening months of my life.