Monday 18 February 2013

The Salon Landlady

Assalamun alaykum warahmatullah wabarakatuhu,

So much water has passed since my last post. Kindly bear with me as my plate is full at the moment. Something interesting happened to me during the weekend and I want to share it with you all.

On Friday, 8 February 2013 at 11.07am, my phone buzzed and I realised that I had a whatsapp message from a random number. Like everyone else would be, I was curious to know who it was and I went on with the chatting flow. After series of messages, I had to eat the humble pie and asked the person who he/she was and I found out it was a sister I met a long time ago who happens to live in the new hood I recently fully moved into.

We talked about a few random things and I besieged her with my problems of how I need/needed a good/reliable hair stylist around the area that I could trust or welcome into my home. She put me out of my misery by telling me she had someone who takes care of that for her but we had to visit her shop.

Fast forward to Saturday, I met with her for a 12pm appointment and we headed to the salon. The owner was welcoming and full of life but had a nosy customer ( who I have tagged Salon Landlady) who happened to be making braids abi na feathers dem dey call am. After settling in, we all told the lady what we wanted to do and how we wanted it done. Then Salon Landlady for one reason or the other decided to fester her eyes on us and was recording our speeches and movement and then because she thought we were Hausa started talking about us with loud tones in Yoruba not knowing that 2 out of the 3 were actually yoruba-speaking.

Firstly, she talked about my friend who came with her daughter of 4 years and how she was due to have another child, she spoke about her skin colour and mentioned it to our hearing that her skin was that way because she married a rich man, she spoke about her iPhone and how it was a "screentouch, smartphone, and touchscreen' all at once (at this point, I was full of laughter that I had to quickly send my friend a bbm about what we were facing).

Next, I became her problem because I was unwilling to remove my hijab and let her tear into my body with her eyes, then she said, "se oru o mu eleyi ni' meaning "Is this one not hot" and she went on and on about her friend who never opened her hair like us and ended with some nasty jokes.

My friends left before me and then I felt victory in me because immediately they stepped out, I switched to Yoruba and asked the woman "nigba wo ni ema setan' meaning "when will you be through". Then our salon landlady looked at me and said 'se yoruba niyin ni?' meaning 'are you a yoruba girl?' I answered in the affirmative and I let her know that I heard and understood all she has been saying and suddenly she became quiet till I left.

My question here is why do people feel they have the right to talk about, analyse and dissect other people's lives simply because their is a language barrier?

P:S: My grammar may seem incoherent or there may be few typos, please forgive me and move along!

Love & Love

ArabianPrincess

2 comments:

  1. Hmm Allahu Musta'an. Backbiting is a major sin and may Allah protect us from it. Co-incidentally, this was the subject of my most recent blog post on Wordpress...

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  2. Common sense is not common! If not why would a woman sit down, open her mouth and start talking about other ppl? Thanks dear,for helping her learn a lesson. #IdleMindedNess.

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