My African natural hair: what a trouble! Or maybe not?

After high school, I was more than excited to finally grow my hair long (in case you didn't know, most Ugandan schools don't allow students to grow long hair). After a few months into the long holiday (here we normally call it a vacation) before joining university, almost automatically, I went ahead to chemically relax my hair. No thought into it, it was just what it was: almost everyone I knew straightened their hair with chemicals.

Before that, I had thin brownish hair strands, but the situation got even worse when I relaxed my hair with chemicals. The kindest people always made fun of how thin and sparse my hair was while the not-so-nice ones simply laughed off and gossiped away the matter.

As if that wasn't enough, the chemicals burnt my scalp  so badly, that each time for retouch I couldn't help tearing at the smell of the chemical relaxers.

After yet another chemical burn, I painfully wondered why we had to relax our hair with chemicals. "It's more manageable." they said, "Natural hair is a lot of work, very painful while combing, something you have to do at least every morning, etc, etc." many cursed. To my surprise, even those who had never grown or kept their hair naturally, confidently said the same. I almost believed them, had it not been for just one question, or maybe two, that I kept asking myself:

Does God really hate Africans? Why on earth would He then give us hair of a kind that is this painful, troublesome and terrible, in that it needed to be burnt and pulled out every now and again?

I went ahead and did some online research and landed on a number of typical African ladies wearing their hair natural! The most mind-blowing part was that many of them had even grown their natural African hair to waist-length. As I rarely make decisions overnight, I went ahead with this research for a couple of years while I was still going through my horrifying relaxed-hair experience. After weighing and analyzing how achievable managing African natural hair could be, I decided to have the "big chop." (this is where you trim off all your hair to start growing it afresh, beginning with the few inches of it left) and started my natural hair journey anew.

Before we continue by the way, please note that not at any point do I intend to come off as though condemning or attacking the relaxing of your hair; I totally believe it is purely a matter of choice as per every individual. 

That said, allow me to continue sharing my personal natural hair journey experience, never know what it might do for you or your friend...

Oh God! I still get embarrassed remembering how bad the first year going natural was: besides everyone telling me how impossible it was for my hair to look like whatever I believed it would, the products and natural oils mess was just so sad!

Bad Hair Day Image by Chris Strach on shorturl.at/mqw59

I cannot fully express how liberating it was, the moment I learnt how to properly take care of my natural hair and how to keep the YouTube natural hair tutorials on the low. My goodness, what a relief!

These are a few points that made me discover that personally, my African hair is not the burden I had grown to think it was:

• Does God hate me? 

A question that unconsciously (and sometimes consciously) comes with all the pain that is involved in the traditional way of grooming African hair. "Does my hair have to hurt this much?" I always silently ask. Priscilla Shirer shares that the chemical relaxers actually had started affecting her physical health.

Genesis 1:31 was the only answer I got to the question, "Does God hate me enough to give me this painful hair, and then say it is a woman's glory?" 

       "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good..." The Bible says.

Which simply meant that my hair was very good! If my hair needed to be thicker, straighter or darker, He wouldn't have let that sixth day (or the day I was created) come to an end before He made it perfect. Therefore, God made your kaweke (usually a type of coiled, sparsely-spaced, hard-to-comb African hair) perfectly the way it should be.

In case you're beginning to feel like I'm over-spiritualizing this, I am really sorry because, being a homegrown Christian, I don't know very much outside the Bible, and I often run to it for every big or small challenge.

I imagine you having a picture of your thick, mat-like, or sponge-like hair, which even sometimes feels like steel wire, and you're wondering how in the world such a thing could even be anywhere close to "perfect". "How can this be very good?" You ask. Well our God is a "perfectionist." He does take His time on each detail of His creation.

"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb."

- Psalms 139:13 

If I know anything about knitting, you have to take every single thread one by one and carefully put it together to make a beautiful piece.

If the Psalmist says He (God) knit me in my mother's womb, then nothing about me came up as a mistake, not even my kaweke.

Seriously, look at the flowers, the soil texture or the clouds, the tree trunks, the leaf patterns: each beautifully designed with its unique details. So, for me it's not just hair; how I view my hair represents how I view the one who created it.

• Identity

Now that I have my hair natural, I feel like it fully represents who I am. Science has it that an African girl's hair curl-pattern, plus composition, is almost as unique to her as her finger print is. We may all have kaweke, but how my hair coils and how it seats on my head is specifically unique to me.

If you were to give my picture to my great grandchildren and you went on like, "She had a fairly light skin completion, very thin eyebrows, about this tall..." I would prefer you continue with the description like this, "...with very beautiful black natural hair that she often held in a pineapple puff."

If you are to start out on this natural hair-care thing, it may require you to take time to know your hair, to have time for yourself. I started off copying most of the things recommended on YouTube that for some reason worked for others but not me. For me to start enjoying my natural hair, I needed to learn the basic tips, then look out for what works for my particular hair and also fits in my schedule. The time I took analyzing what works for my hair and what doesn't, was a worthwhile time-investment for me that helped create a better sense of self-love for myself (It was one great me-time!).

It is not just hair to me, it is a part of me. Therefore, accepting it or not is to accept myself as a whole or not.

Is the alternative to natural hair worth the pain?

Maybe I am just a softie, yet the pain is more than worth it for the other ladies. I may be a softie, but those chemicals usually left actual big wounds on my scalp. No, it was not at all worth it for me.

I still plait my hair, sew-in weaves and braids, etc., but I no longer allow to be plaited so tightly that it hurts because:

1. Personally, I don't believe it's worth it. It is important to note one of the keys to proper natural hair-care, and that is: if it hurts, it's not right. 
2. It doesn't help your natural hair to grow healthy; it actually breaks your hair.
3. Is it worth losing your entire front hairline? It gets so painful to me every time I see a lady whose hairline (the front hair from above the forehead) now starts from behind the ears. I wonder how it will turn out when they become elderly if they don't change their hair-care practice.
4. You are taking pain killers every after plaiting those dreads; girl is it worth it?

I pray that I didn't step on anyone's toes in this article. In case I did, I thank you for being open-minded and letting me share my experience with you, I would surely love to read yours too in the comments.

It's yet another amazing Wednesday.

Thank you for passing by.

God bless!