Why did you cut your beautiful hair

Encountering new worlds

Photo by Howard Chin on Unsplash

Once I lived in a beautiful home. In the basement, dolls from all around the world were displayed in vitrines. All newcomers sat down there while talking to Sister Bea, and they understood: next time, they would bring a doll as a gift, dressed in the national costume of their country.

Once accepted into the house, they became part of the young, beautiful girls running down the corridors — girls from the best families around the world. They were sent to Paris to study, to learn French, and to grow.

I felt like I was in the middle of it all. I had friends from Brazil, Africa, Indonesia, and other countries from the Far East, as well as from Greece. We talked about our wishes and exchanged ideas.

“My duty is to have as many children as possible!” explained a young girl from Malaysia.

“But why?” I asked, surprised.

“To make our nation strong…” she answered.

I wondered why she had to learn French and study in France if the goal of her life was already that clear and seemed to lead in a completely different direction. I accepted her point of view, but I did not understand it at all.

At the top of the stairs in this beautiful old house with squeaky wooden steps, there was a place where we ironed our clothes. One Sunday morning, as I was returning from breakfast with croissants to my small room under the roof, I stopped in shock.

My best friend, Kendi from Africa, was ironing her shirt.

“Oh, my God!” I cried. “Why did you cut off your beautiful hair?”

She started to giggle — I can still hear her deep, full laughter even today.

“Just tell me why, for God’s sake!”

She had the shortest hair I had ever seen; it looked like a cornfield after harvest.

Her laughter filled the narrow space under the roof, warm and deep, as if it belonged to the house itself. When she caught her breath, she turned to me with a soft, kind smile.

“But Iris, for these braids I have to sit for hours at the hairdresser’s. This is the way African hair is done!”

Down in the basement, the dolls stood still behind glass. But up here, everything was alive, changing, becoming.