25 October 2014: The full buzz

It’s official- all my hair is gone. It feels really, really weird. It’s completely buzzed to ½ inch (the longest guard on Tyler’s clippers). Before chopping the whole thing, we experimented with the Mohawk, which kind of turned into the Macklemore look. I was planning on keeping that cut for at least a day, but it looked entirely too strange on me, so I just said screw it, buzz it all off. It’s very freeing- I can wash it super easily, I can feel the wind and rain on my scalp, I can feel each hair being pressed on when I wear a hood on my rain jacket (it’s been quite a rainy week), and it’s also very soft. I really can’t stop touching my own head. I always thought of myself as very low maintenance, but I took it to the next level. Now I don’t have to deal with messing with it- it was always up in a knot anyway. I’m the only girl so far (and now I can say at all) who buzzed her head. Hillary and Cassie did the ponytail chop, but not much more. My ‘me was laughing with (but more like at…) me today just like she was yesterday, but I held up my three year old ausi, put her head next to mine, and pointed out that we have the same haircut now. She was kind of like oh, I guess you do. It’s just weird for them to see a white girl with short hair. She said that now I am a Mosotho. I know she was kind of joking, but by her saying that, I felt very included both in the family and in the culture.

At the Macklemore stage with my trusty barber, Tyler

                

                The next day, we convinced Neel, who had more powerful clippers that had to be plugged in, to bring them to the hub where we would most likely have the generator that day. Sure enough, they brought the generator so the medical team could show us a power point. During lunch, Lee, Neel, and I jumped out the back window, plugged those suckers in, and finished what I had attempted to do to Lee’s hair the day before. I did about 3/4 of the Mohawk when the generator’s gas ran out. Had they not put more gas in, I don’t know what we would have done. It was a hilarious look for about ten minutes. I finished it up, and he was quite impressed with the result.

               

A little choppy, but still awesome.

One of the LCFs promptly took him aside and told him that it was not “professional enough,” so a few days later when they brought back the generator, we hopped out the back window, turned on the clippers again, and said goodbye to the Mohawk. Oh well- it was cool while it lasted.

I often make a point of going outside to see the amazing sky at sunset.