What I noticed while I volunteered at a training programme in Makoko

I will start off by saying that I am strong-minded about one too many things especially things that have to do with poverty.

Earlier today, I was in a place called Makoko (picture above), you might have heard about it on CNN when Errol Barnett visited it on a special episode of Inside Africa. To clear your mind about something, no, I did not get in a canoe and no, I wasn't on a house above the water, I was in a house right behind the houses on the water (like after the building I was in, was water with the houses above on it).

From the picture, you can guess that at least 99% of the people living in Makoko live in poverty. And it irritates me so much to know that those people live in poverty and yet, they waste their money on things like relaxers! Yes!

The women and quite a number of the kids there all had their hair relaxed and I was like, "what on earth?!?!" You are finding it hard to feed, to clothe....and you are wasting the little money you have on something like a relaxer. For what?

Relaxers are not cheap! They're about what? N1000 (about £4) per pack for the cheaper ones (which contain more sodium hydroxide - harmful!). You can go to a restaurant and buy something elegant, though simple for N1000, you can buy a bunch of plantains around that area for N1000 (and that plantain can last quite a long time and you can feed your family with it), you can buy raw materials for making pastries or getting other things that you can sell and make even more money with that N1000. They spend it on a relaxer. That's wise.

People relax their hair like what? every 6 weeks. Okay! so, that's N1000 every six weeks (by the way, the 'N' stands for 'Naira' - the currency used here). There are 52.1775 weeks in a year. So, if you get a relaxer every six weeks, that's 8.69625 relaxers, but we can't use a decimal amount so, we'll say 8 to 9 relaxers a year and that's how much? N8000 naira. Now, what can you buy with that N8000?  A used Blackberry Curve (that works perfectly), a Stella Morgan blazer/dress, AX Paris dress, something from Forever21, ANNA tank tops, an item of clothing from Zara.....et cetera. N8000 is about £32. I bought something from Etsy in June that cost just £18 pounds (international shipping included). So, you can buy more than 1 thing from Etsy and get it shipped down here for that N8000. By the way, N8000 is about $49.77. Think of what you can get in the United States with that. Okay! moving away from luxury goods. You don't have to get international or designer stuff with the N8000. You can get locally made clothes and get a whole lot of change. I once paid just N100 to get a skirt made for me here. So, that money can get you about 80 skirts. You can get loads of raw materials to cook with and those resources can last for months!

You're living in poverty and you spend that much money on a relaxer instead of embracing your God-given, beautiful hair? Wise. Okay! So, you save N8000 a year if you don't get a relaxer, in 2 years, you save N16000, in three years, N24000, in four years N32000. I'm sure N8000 can pay the rent for a while, if you have to pay rent in Makoko (I don't know). N40000 (not buying a relaxer for 5 years) can pay the rent in a better part of the mainland. You have a baby, the baby stays at home till he/she is at least a year old (I don't know about you or your kids readers, but I started school (pre-school) at the age of 1). During that time your baby is at home, from not spending your money on relaxers, you save at least N8000 and you can use that to send your kid to an okay-enough (not so good, though), school once the kid is of age. That's better than the kid sitting at home or running around in dirt and filth watching crime and a whole lot of other things.

It just irritates me that I was born into a very different life than theirs. Our worlds are like on two separate spectrums yet, I can think of this and they can't?

The next time, I hear someone say, "I don't have money," or "the money isn't coming," or "please give me money" in this country and I see a relaxer in their hair (relaxed hair), I am going to be so pissed.

Save your money, boo!

Moving Out and Heading Over to the U of the K

Hey,

So, as some of you know, I've been living with my parents in Africa (while the rest of the fam is in England). Boohoo! Anyways, now that I'm done with high school and there really isn't much that has to do with education that I can be offered here right now, I'm moving to England.

Living in Africa had its benefits with the who natural hair thing. Y'all pay an arm and a leg for a little bottle of shea butter while my grandmother (my dad's mum), who lives here just goes over to a local market (which I do not know) and gets me some large supply of shea butter whenever I need it and it's cheap too! She has an aloe vera plant at her house too ( a massive one) and whenever I need some aloe vera gel or juice, I just go over to her house, ask her for some aloe leaves and I have a fresh supply of those for free! When I need eggs for a protein treatment, yes, I could go to a grocery store/supermarket, but my grandmother sells eggs too and I can get large ones from her and it's cheaper getting it from her than anywhere else that I know of. Yup! she's some super grandmother! I know! :) Where I used to live here (we moved to a neighbouring island), we had about 4 coconut trees and like oooooh.myyyy.goooosh that was some free coconut goodness for my hair!

You see, back in England, it's a whole different story. I have to search high and low or order shea butter or aloe vera gel before I can get my hands on them. However, with the coconuts, there is no downside 'cause the house I currently live in doesn't have a coconut tree so I pay for my coconut milk (and oil) and I'll continue doing that in England (only that I'll be paying less in England, which is good). On a positive note, I called my grandmother today and she's sending over some shea butter and buying some more for me enough for my to take along to England and have for a long time. With the aloe gel and juice. Yes, I like the freshness I get from my grandmother's plant, but I don't mind buying a bottle of aloe gel and juice 'cause the whole extraction process isn't exactly easy and aloe vera spoils easily especially when fresh and I can't bombard the fridge with hair products.

Another thing in England is that BritishCurlies is there. As most of you know, I order my products from BritishCurlies' Curly Emporium (online store). They're in England so, it'll be easier for my to get my hands on products when I need them. The weather too is a plus for me, since I went natural, each time I've been back to England, my hair has felt much better than it did here and I blame that on the weather and the pollution level.

Another thing is that I can get my hands on a wider variety of things in England like fresh lavender leaves and other things for DIY products and I can meet stylists who aren't out to give me some traction alopecia or rip my hair right out of my scalp. Matthew James, I'll meet you some day and you'll finally get your hands on my hair!

So, I'm getting my shopping list and cart ready so I get all that I need from here and from the CurlyEmporium ASAP.
All seems good right now :)

Let's see how well I handle things (especially paying for everything I need myself, 'cause that's what moving out comes with :) ).

~Sammy

Why are people so against naturally curly and kinky hair?

So, I've been wondering, why are people so bothered by naturally curly hair and why do they want people to like basically stop embracing their God given hair?

Today, I stepped into the nurse's office at school and one of my teachers (well, she doesn't teach me anymore) was on the hospital bed thingy their and the nurse for like the elementary school was beside her. I was with the nurse whose office that was (the secondary nurse). So, my "ex"-teacher was like, "why's your hair like this? It's pretty messy. You're graduating soon that may be why 'cause you don't normally wear your hair like this." So, yeah, my hair was a lil bit messy 'cause i didn't really bother with it yesterday and today (cramps yesterday, headache all day today). I wasn't upset about the teacher's remark, but what came next from the elementary nurse. She was like, "and her hair is natural. I don't know why she doesn't want to relax it." I was then asked by the other nurse, "when are you going to relax your hair," and I was like, "never," she was like, "so, how long are you planning on staying natural," I was like, "till I die." The other nurse was like, "you should put some relaxer on your hair."

I happened to have an old picture of me with me and the teacher was looking at it, she gave it to the elementary nurse and she was like, "your hair's different here. It looks different," and I was like, "'cause it was relaxed in that picture," and she was like, "why don't you just put a little relaxer in your hair now," and I was like, "I'm not going to." I was getting rather pissed at this point, but I didn't let it show. I'm like, "what's the fuss?"

A girl in my set (last year of high school) was sitting at the nurse's table and was like, "there's something you can use instead of a relaxer to get your hair straight. It's called a Brazilian keratin treatment." My reply was straight on, "I'm not going to get a keratin treatment."

The teacher then asked me what I was planning to do with my hair for my graduation. What I like about her was that she was ready to accept my choice here. I told her that i was planning on threading my hair to stretch it out then I'll figure out some way to style it. She was cool with that. Thought it was a good idea. Then out of curiousity, she asked why I was so against changing my texture and I told her that my hair was really long when I was younger, I got it relaxed and then it broke to nape length and remained that short. She noticed that my hair was longer than that now so she had this, "'hen it's a good idea you stopped getting relaxers' attitude (God, bless that woman).

I'm sick and tired of having people make a fuss about my natural texture and getting it straight. Some people if dare to right out assume and say, "YOU CAN'T COMB YOUR HAIR!" and I'm like, "what the heck, I can't get a comb through my hair, why would you just say that I can't?" (actually, I don't say heck when I'm usually talking because I don't know how people take it around here). People would be like, "I don't want hair like yours, it's too thick and curly," and I'm like, "I never asked you if you wanted hair like mine."

Back here, people seem to hate their natural textures. Ever since the introduction of relaxers. People watch those ads. with long flowy hair or they want as some BLACK woman stupidly put it, "the WHITE girl flow." Many people want to be who they're not. Okay! So, people may say it's easier for me - I'm mixed race. I have the tightest curls in my family (well, apart from my dad (black)) and if you've been following my blog, you'll know that my curls have been getting tighter and tighter over the past few months (about a year or more now). People would go, "but your hair's soft so you can  afford to be natural," and I'm like, "my hair isn't normally like this. Proper care is what got it to this state." my mum says that the main thing that pushed her to go natural was that many people hated and were against naturally curly and kinky hair here and she wondered why. Okay! so, my mum hated her curls and that's why she started relaxing her hair years ago, but hey God gave us this hair so why should we hate it? I am so proud of my mum right now she's growing out her hair and yes, she's tempted to get a relaxer, but she's more of in a "cut off all the straight parts or relax" position. However, she can't stand to have what she'll call short hair, but others might call medium length (she gets some pretty powerful shrinkage like I do, by the way). She's at BSL (or below it now, haven't done a new length check for her *we add in her relaxed ends when checking the length of her hair, by the way). Some people have been like, "we see you're going natural," and then they go on about how they can't dare do it and my mum starts to tell them that they can and encourage them heck, she refers to my blog and she's gotten me a queue of people waiting for hair care tips and advice (that reminds me, I've got to get to that).

If people get tattoos or piercings, some people'll be like, "why are you destroying the body God gave you?" People quote, "you are wonderfully and beautifully made," they say, "God made us perfect" et cetera, so why can't many of those people accept their natural textures? They go, "it's too nappy, too kinky, I can't comb it, it doesn't look good," UMMM......weren't you made perfect and beautiful, why d'you want to change something God made perfect?

You get my drift here right?
(Oh my days, I used the word 'drift' in this context! Like, I never do that!)


What are your views on this topic?


p.s My brother flew down here (got here today) and I was like staring at his hair. I L.O.V.E his curls. Oh! and guess what? He finally decided to use a sulfate-free shampoo (one of mine) he still doesn't use a conditioner and his excuse is (and he said it today), "i'm not a girl, I'm a guy, I don't need conditioner." He'll eventually get around to using conditioners (I am rather convincing in a subtle way) :)