Check out my food blog!

08 April, 2010

Barbershop Cultural Exchange Part I

So I was getting pretty shaggy around the neck and ears after a cold winter of not getting my hair cut. Finally I bit the bullet, made the 30 minutes walk into town and stopped off at the neighborhood barbershop. I walked in to find my normal barber not there. Instead, his early-twenties counterpart was sitting alone in one of the waiting chairs flipping through satellite TV stations.
"Are you cutting hair now?" I asked. "Yeah. Come have a seat". I noted that my normal guy was gone and he offered to let me wait until he returned, but I guess I'm not too loyal about these sorts of things so I sat down and let him strap on the bib.
Moroccan barbershops can be pretty nice. Our barbershop is the only establishment in my whole community with glass and carved-wood doors, where ugly sheet metal doors are the norm. Inside are two leather barber chairs strategically placed in front of a wall-to-wall mirror above a tiled countertop. On top of the counter, among the trimming paraphernalia, is a fancy plastic double-wall insulated thermos. This contains piping hot water so that when they sprits your hair or wipe away trimmings with a wet towel, it will be warm and refreshing (a pleasant and thoughtful amenity in these cold months). On the back wall, across from the mirror are three waiting chairs and a coat rack. Above the mirror, looming large in the left upper corner of the room is a medium-sized satellite TV with remote.
Today the remote belonged to my young hairdresser friend. He put it down to settle me in to my chair and got started snipping away at the fringes of my head. Soon another man came in and sat down and we all made small talk. The topic of me being American was broached (as it was fairly obvious), and before long the young hairdresser was developing a plan to make me feel more at home. He grabbed the remote from of the tiled counter and deftly punched in a series of numbers which left the TV above us loudly broadcasting MTV. He thought I would appreciate the "sounds from home", which in fact, were the rhythmic spittings of rap great Jay-Z. MTV had deemed it entertaining to create a "Top 20 Video Countdown" highlighting his extensive work. I'm not sure how the elderly Berber man waiting for his haircut felt about it, but my barber seemed to enjoy at least the beat.
To be honest, I was feeling at home, as a result. Especially when during one song, they asked to translate what he was saying. I hesitated for a moment and then said "ntta, dars bzzef n mashakil, welayni, urdars walo mushkil n tirvatin", which I though was a fairly direct, if not slightly more respectful translation of the original wording "I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one".
The American wisdom seemed to resonate strongly with these men. They bobbed their heads while I kept mine as still as possible for the remainder of the haircut. After trimming my neck and sideburns with a straight razor, he invited me to come to his house for a meal. I said that I was in a rush, paid my 10Dhs, left through the carved-wood door, and wandered down the dirt road with a head free from a heavy load of hair,
but full of catchy beats.