My older sister and I spent our pre-school years in a childcare facility of boarding school kind. We would be picked up every Saturday evening and dropped off the next day afternoon. Six mornings a week I, with majority of the children, would be lying on the stomach with chin cupped in hands, watching a few long-haired girls, including my sister, getting up earlier and lining up to have their hair done by one of the night-shift teachers. Their hair would be parted in the middle, and then woven into two beautiful plaits. I had wondered, but never asked, why mom had only let my sister’s hair grow long.
My hair started to show its length on my protest and insistence when I reached twelve years old. Loose long hair was not accepted by the society back then for anyone, little girls, young ladies or adult women. Short hair or two pigtails or plaits was the hairstyle you could see in public. I managed to keep my hair as long as I could by developing a skill of combing, parting and then weaving efficiently, usually finishing the whole procedure in less than five minutes, because time on hair was very limited in the morning of every school day.
