I am Shiva, Destroyer of Hair

It was a rainy day in Segou today, so I thought it would be a good time to get a hair cut. I've only had my hair cut one other time in country so far, and the experience was fine, so I figured if I went to the same place I'd come home a happy customer. That was fatal assumption number one.

Since I can't really explain how I want my hair cut in Bambara and the barbers here don't cut white guy's hair too often, my strategy in the past was to just point at one of the soccer players on a wall poster and say "do that". Last time I got the "Wayne Rooney". This time I was going for more of a "Steven Gerrard" look.

At first the barber had the right idea... except instead of bringing the clipper up to cut, he brought it down my head, which is a terribly inefficient way to cut straight hair. It's like trying to cut wet, matted down grass with a lawn mower. Doesn't work well. But, after a while "the look" started to take form. However, when nearing completion I pointed out that one side of my head was still longer than the other.

Instead of simply repeating the procedure he had been following up to that point, he chose to use an upward cutting motion this time, which left a giant divot on the left side of my forehead. I now had more of a "crater" look going on. There's no way a pair of paramecia sharing a brain cell wouldn't have been able to figure out why I was displeased with the result. Yet the barber seemed dumbfounded as to why I had become so disgruntled after what he had just done.

He then attempted to correct his colossal error and ended up shaving my hair all the same length in a buzz cut. Now I was mad. I could have done what this guy did blindfolded with my non-dominant hand after consuming copious amounts of alcohol, but apparently I decided to bike to the barbers in the rain and pay full price for work that I wouldn't even tolerate for my dog back in the States. AAaarrrgg!