By Mary-Jane
Mabula
I
spent the first 18 years of my life without braiding or having hair extension
on. This was a result of church rules and regulations. One commandment that
many churches insist on, until the pastor’s wife wants to explore with long
hair too. When I grew up weave was wicked and slutty. The nature of the community
that my parents bordered me with believed that weave, eyelashes, nail polish,
make up are all Satan’s creations.
Now
at 23, I am recovering my hairline after I became a slave to weave and braiding
since 2010. I began university with my well groomed black afro yet a few months
in. I wanted to belong, fit in with my friends who had R400 razor cuts or
“Rihanna style” as Ntate Chomane Chomane of Lesedi FM once referred to on one
of his rants about hair on radio.
I
still had to avoid going to my parent’s house with weave on. I remember once I
had just put on a R300 hairpiece on coupled with eyelashes and it turned out I
had an interview back at home in the Free State. The struggle of taking the
hair off and the amount of money wasted it was painful to me.
Sitting
here and trying to understand how weave and all beautifying things got so
addictive is a mystery. Reality is I am not alone. An amount of South African
young women bear this sickness of not feeling beautiful without all the artificial
hair us.
It
is 2014, I am a professional young lady, living and working in a city that
discriminates against those who wear “dituku” and long dresses. I believe this
addiction that I and many of young women have is because of so many factors
that date back to the slavery time. I cannot duel on those factors that even in
modern society still tell an average black girl she’s not good looking without
some Indian girl’s hair on her head.
It
is imperative for us women not to overlook ourselves. I lost the meaning of
what beauty is. What being African means. What means to be me without the weave?
The need to have weave on clouded my vision of who I am.
I
am 25 days into my no weave mission and it has been a journey. Some mornings I
wake up wishing I had weave just to brush it and go. Some mornings I wake up to
see my roommate slave away the morning trying to straighten it out to my
entertainment. Most days it is great fun to laugh at my colleagues using pens
to stretch their scalps. Sometimes it is depressing to be given less attention
by the opposite sex because I do not look approachable enough. None the less
brown sister with nappy hair you are beautiful.
