Pasar le blower!

3 lbs Bizcocho (cake) - $RD 1,200 pesos ($35.29 U.S.)
12 Escojo certificates - $RD242 pesos ($7.12 U.S.)
“Pasar el blower al salón” (hair straighten at the salon) - $RD 80 pesos ($2.35)
The satisfaction and happiness my straightened hair gave Julia – priceless Since I arrived to Duveaux, March 7th, 2008, just about everyone who has laid eyes on me has been dying to straighten all life out of my hair. Not one day goes by where someone doesn’t offer to either run a brush through my mop or blow dry me straight. Comments about how beautiful it would look had I gotten my ass to the salon are also a daily remark. One gua-gua ride, I was letting the breeze blow through my curly locks out the window and a big-gutted man from outside a tire shop yelled to me “ven a peinarte”, (come, let me comb your hair). The kids and teenage girls aren’t the only ones with this yearning desire!
Now, I am not going to go into the whole schpeal about what people refer to as “good hair/bad hair” or how the Dominican yearning burning longing to straighten their kinky is just one of the many ways Dominicans seem to negate the black in them. I will keep this one slightly personal so as to evade the heat or conflict surrounding this topic.
What a lucha it has been to keep my bouncy curly cues hang loose around these parts. Up until today that is, August 16, 2009. Peace finally paid a visit to Duveaux for one, hopefully final, Escojo Graduation. Yes, you guessed it….. I spent the morning in the Salon and what a salon! Now I wasn’t exactly expecting mimosas, but nor was I anticipating the communal bobby pins that clamped my straightened mane. No one sent me the byob (bring your own bobbies) memo. I was already slightly disappointed that I couldn’t rest my head on the sink during the wash and that I was going to be sharing combs and brushes with the community at large. But the bobby pins were pushin’ it! I bit the bullet today to say the least. I am sure some in my community were thinking something along the lines of, “finally that girl got it together or at last, she gets it.” I think that getting my hair blown dry today gave some people in Duveaux the same sense of satisfaction I get when anyone throws something in the trash can instead of on the ground or says please or thank you. Neither one of us is really changing our ways, but we are momentarily pleasing the other!