![The Global Salon]()
The salon sat at the bottom floor of
the developing world’s version of a gated community— a five star hotel. The
hotel was precariously perched, hosting an army of foreigners working on war,
while staying in business under a regime denying war crimes. As a
Tamil-Sri-Lankan-American I am neither entirely foreign, nor comfortably local.
I had checked into this hotel, for just
one night, several times. I came into the capital city as the first-world
version of myself and quickly left for “the field” — to be someone else. As I
worked in camps, orphanages, and hostels across the warzone I guaranteed my
safety by parading as a curious expat, a local, and, just once, an Indian
actress. In a militarized space where Tamil is synonymous with Terror, camouflage
is the only way to go un-noticed.
On this trip, I was at the tip of a
region recently cluster-bombed with violence. Young women proudly displayed the
baby clothes made with the only form of reparations they would get— brand new
sewing machines. The folds of their saris covered the invisible scars of rape
but lifted slightly to reveal the artificial limbs they hobbled in on.
One young girl took me aside. Despite
the fact that my Tamil only aspires to fluency, I am always comforted when
fast-paced jokes, familiar phrases, and strong opinions in Tamil hover above
the village dust. Akka (older sister), what we really want to do is open a beauty
salon. Her eyes were bright with anticipation as she spoke faster, perhaps
sensing my confusion. Yes, we can do
hair. For weddings and big parties. Looking out through the bullet holes, I
couldn’t see a population in urgent need of medicine and food spending money on
hair. She protests, But Akka, maybe this
is what the people really need. Things that make you feel normal. She asks
to do my hair. I don’t love braids with lots of pins, but I don’t say anything.
I hate conflict.
And then I returned — to the capital,
where the war paint easily washed away. As with all gated communities, the
hotel in Sri Lanka’s island paradise (as described by Conde Nast’s 2013
rankings) promised to stave off reality with the false sense of comfort that comes
with complete isolation. When my reality involved the darkest parts of blood-stained
political terrain, I was grateful to temporarily sell my soul for a hair wash in
their lower level oasis.
This was not Queen Latifah’s small
business with boisterous staff, blaring music, and a spontaneous community. This
was a corporate endeavor, where the line between client and staff was to be
maintained with chitchat that was polite without being intrusive. Everyone was
brown, dressed in all white.
They recognized me by now, and always
asked casually, You’re here for work? In
this place, everyone knew my room number, my name, my face, my hair – but no
one knew who I was. And I was never the same person. At first I was a
volunteer, desperate to “help” orphans and save myself. Then an aid worker
leading thirty eagerly overwhelmed play therapists into tsunami-ravaged
villages. I was also a political scientist, gathering stories (‘data’) to
understand what terrorizes female terrorists. And finally, the most damning. A
human rights researcher compiling pain and misery into reports that should be
read by people who wouldn’t read them.
I nodded and returned to perusing
glossy photos of Colombo’s elite…often posing in front of the supersize floral
arrangements just a few feet down the hall. As in any public space on the
island, politics could not be discussed, and I was always temporarily relieved
by the silence of superficiality.
It never took long for me to start to
shift uncomfortably as staff members obsessively tried to ensure my utmost
comfort. I would watch the city’s finest and most powerful (usually not the
same) stroll in and out, and overhear snippets of casual conversation in
Singhalese—a language spoken by the majority of soldiers and civilians alike.
Fresh from a ten hour drive that day I fidgeted
with my shirt, covering my tattoos, casting my eyes downwards—a strange
attempt to be inconspicuous in a place where I was unknown. My imagination wandered off to the day
when my precarious house of identity cards came tumbling down—making me enemy
number one.
The hip stylist rotates my chair to
face the mirror. How do you like your
hair done this time, Madame? he asks in impeccable English. Before I reply
he confirms, You should wear it very straight. I glance down at the local
paper I had picked up to avoid conversation. I couldn’t help but suck in my
breath. Splayed across the front page was the image of a former fighter. I had
interviewed her when she was a current revolutionary. Decked out in a rich
sari, curls piled high on her head, I only recognized her by the stern look on
her face.
Ah, you like her hair? he
asks. I did that for their fashion show.
Isn’t it wonderful how she’s been
rehabilitated? He beams with pride that the government had taken notice of
his skills for a propaganda photograph.
In the chair next to me, a similarly
coiffed woman turns slowly, weighed down by the girth of wealth. Isn’t it wonderful now there’s peace, you
remember how much security we used to have to deal with? And for these girls,
how lucky to have a new life, no?” No.
…
In my first weeks in Dar Es Salaam, I
sought comfort in the familiar spaces that I despised. The luxury outdoor
shopping centers which co-opted the best waterfront views for the benefit of
local elites and ex-pats alike. The food was generally awful and shopping
attractions included overpriced handicrafts that you were assured would
benefit poor women … somewhere, somehow.
Standing against the third-floor railing
was a distinctly Sri-Lankan man—as easily distinguished by his features as
the classic Colombo hipster gear (tight black shirt, gel-spiked ‘do, and an array
of silver jewelry). He recognized me first—in a more intimate way than
simply fellow country folk.
Didn’t you used to come to Colombo? Yes, and he had done my hair. And so, in a space eerily
similar to the one across the Indian Ocean, I sat down in a rotating chair. This
time, as the Swahili floated around us, we were both well outside our comfort
zone. We searched for pieces of home in each other…only to come up
empty-handed.
You don’t speak Singhalese. I left it at No.
After all, he didn’t ask what language I did speak. And so began the introductory
dance between two Sri Lankans trying to determine if the other is us or them.
Where are your parents from?
Colombo. (ethnically
mixed)
Which part?
Colombo 4. (also,
ethnically mixed)
My answers were as purposefully vague
as his were pointedly specific. Later, I skirted around the same inquisition
with his wife, smiling noncommittally as she invited me to the Buddhist
temple. She swings me away from myself to face her as she mused, You should wear your hair in curls. I knew I was afraid of exposing my work,
but wondered if I was hiding who I was.
A few months later I was waiting for a
friend at the same salon and marveling at how similarly obsequious the Sri Lankan
staff were to white people in Africa as they were in Sri Lanka. Across the
global south, white skin (turned uncomfortably pink and sweaty) demanded
service.
This particular woman was an Aid Worker
(I don’t know that for a fact, but I am making an educated guess based on the safari
clothes worn in an urban space and the acronyms plastered on all of her
belongings). In a well-meaning attempt to project cultural consciousness and
curiosity she queried the hairstylist, Ohhh,
Sri Lanka. Wasn’t there a war there?
Oh yes, it was terrible,
she answers, sucking the air through her teeth—a uniquely Sri Lankan form of
emphasis. We were always scared of them (me?) … you know, the terrorists.
The label formed an invisible bond against a common threat. The Aid
Worker shakes her head. Just awful,
she commiserates.
I am tempted to intervene, to tell our
version of events. But the effort seems misplaced, and possibly useless.
Instead, I am determined to dislike the stylist now, perhaps even boycott the
salon—largely on the basis of the personal politics I have placed on her,
without her consent. It’s too late to leave now though, she is calling me next.
She speaks through the thread as she
does my eyebrows, almost whispering as she explains the context of her life. In
Africa, the kinship of island blood has offered her the possibility of camaraderie.
She has two children from a previous marriage which fell apart. She met her
husband at the salon in Colombo where an Arab woman from Canada asked him to
run the salon in Tanzania. They figured they would work a few years, make some
money, and return back home. But now, she
has not allowed us to go back in three years. We cannot take vacation. She has
installed cameras everywhere to watch us. We have not been able to save very
much at all. I haven’t seen my
children in years.
That’s the thing with empathy … it
refuses to stay within the lines of our own prejudices. Even the smug
reassurances of ethnic superiority couldn’t cure the woes of a labor force
toiling away in silence, behind the pristine glass boasting an ocean view. They
hoped to go to Vancouver soon—jumping oceans again to escape the global reach
of corporate culture, in search of humane working conditions.
…
Back in Manhattan, I usually entrusted
my hair to internet deals—in my home country I was no longer in the elite
ranks for hair care. Nestled in between an Irish pub and chain store (clear markers
of midtown east), the stylist here had a kind manner and buoyant spirit. Where are you from? she asks. I know she
doesn’t mean which Manhattan neighborhood. From Sri Lanka, I
say (instead of “I’m Sri Lankan”).
She is from Syria. The border of Syria
and Turkey. She pauses, What do you do? A
question I never quite know how to answer. I spend time with people who suffer
in silence in the places we don’t see. I try to think, write, analyze, and
program their pain away. I rarely succeed. I settle on, I work on women and war. She assumes this means I am the important U.N.-type who
frequents the salon and begins to situate her family within the day’s headlines
(will-he-or-won’t-he-invade).
She starts with the living, the lived
experience. I have just been able to get
my mother over here, three weeks ago. I tried to convince my dad, but he cannot
leave my sisters. At least I know she is safe. That is one less worry. Only
now my mother has begun to tell me stories. Maybe, I didn’t want to know. I was
sending money. The price of bread is six times the price that it was. Can you
imagine?
I don’t say anything. I don’t voice the
comparison I’m making to civilian concerns in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, everywhere.
I don’t want to interrupt.
Then she addresses the dead. My brother-in-law was just walking in the
street. My cousin’s body, it was found in the water. They weren’t involved in
anything. She doesn’t pause. I
wasn’t surprised. When violence is a part of your every day, you can’t stop to
think. She moves forward by going
back.
I grew up in Damascus, you know. (I hear, this is not happening out there. It is in me). My son, I sent him back there to live for
many years.
How is he handling this? I
ask. He is sad, and sometimes angry.
The missing link in theories of “radicalization” – sadness always comes before
anger.
When I grew up, my best friends, one girl was Jewish, the
other was Christian. I would go
with them sometimes to church and synagogue. This, what is happening, this is
not Islam. I am inwardly offended that she has not
sensed in me the type of thoughtful consciousness which renders such an
explanation unnecessary. She
understands the limits of her options. We
are waiting now, for the U.N. decision.
What do you want to happen? I ask. Because I know that even the most vehement
anti-interventionist is happy to welcome Uncle Sam when their own people are on
the wrong side of history.
I don’t understand everything, but I want someone to stop
it. The U.N., America, somebody.
She pauses, searching for an ending, at
the very least a place holder. She sighs, It’s
all politics. It has nothing to do with people.
She offers me another mirror, to see
both sides of myself. It’s nice like
this, right? Full of waves. I don’t quite know how to extract myself from
the narrative that surrounded us both and hung heavy in the air. I want to
offer help, but I knew all too well the fresh devastation brought by empty
promises.
The salon wasn’t doing very well, the
economy and such. She offers me a discount to return and turns around to her
next client with a smile. As I walk out, the harmony of hair dryers drowns out
a voice that desperately needed to be heard.
Nimmi Gowrinathan is a policy consultant who has extensive experience as a
human rights and humanitarian professional. She is an expert on gender and
violence, and has a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California,
Los Angeles. She is currently writing a book on sexual violence and female
fighters.
[Image by Jim Cooke, sources via Shutterstock]
