When the wind blows

Illustration. Photo credit: 

        The Relentless Builder

Still reminiscing on Betty's beauty salon my mind goes to an incident at some point in those days.

Like I mentioned, the Ghanian guys were the the whiz kids in hair dressing. They were not only good but had the swag to carry their expertise.

Almost all of them had  permed afro hair and dressed differently. Once you saw a Ghanian hair dresser you knew it immediately.

For a long time mother's salon was the only one on our street in Enugu and so there was a lot of traffic which was good for Betty.

Another salon sprung up all of a sudden adjacent to mother's salon which meant competition for mother's salon.

Mother of course had lost some customers. The new Ghanian guy in town seemed to know the work well. Wackson was his name and his own afro was outrageous.

His business was doing quite well but we could never understand why he wore he wore pyjamas and sports shoes all day.

One day out of jealousy I'm sure, Charley alleged that Wackson was not from Ghana.

Even mother could sense the jealousy and she quickly told him to mind his business. 

The days went by and Wackson gave mother's salon a run for its money. He was quite hardworking but was a snub and still wore different shades of pyjamas.

Life continued as usual, mother saw the competition as a challenge and so she encouraged her staff to keep pushing.

Ghana must go era was a very painful one. The authorities would go around randomly to look for Ghanains who were working illegally. 

Several times mother had to protect her staff from those authorities. She did all she could to keep them not just because they were useful to her  but because she knew that they had come in search of greener pastures.

When the wind blows; the chicken's butt will be exposed.

On one of those days when there was a raid, mother immediately notified her staff and they locked up the salon but Wackson who always seemed to have privileged information about the raids was taken unawares.

As the authorities dragged him to a waiting bus, there was a sudden miracle; Wackson started to speak in Igbo. Some thought he was speaking in tongues at first. Lol! 

He was pleading and shouting that he was an Igbo man trying to make ends meet. He had the thickest Enugu village (wawa) accent.

Charley was right after all, Wackson was a snub because he was avoiding direct contact with people especially Ghanaians. He couldn't speak their language and knew nothing about the country or culture of the people  he impersonated. 

After Wackson was released, he barbed his hair, threw all his pyjamas away and became really friendly. He never spoke one word of Pidgin English anymore. It took me a very long time to accept that Wackson was no longer from Ghana. 

He also dropped the silly name - Wackson.