Pampering, Ghana style

Every woman needs and deserves a bit of pampering now and again. Despite appearances to the contrary, I’m no exception. It has been ages since I’ve had a decent haircut (I’ve grumbled about that before), but I self-mutilate my hair whenever it needs it – kind of a band-aid approach – and that’s good enough. But I just adore getting my nails done because I just cannot do it myself; I’d be better off allowing Alex to do it for me. I almost never do my fingers, though, they’re far too busy with typing and cooking and a billion other things to be fixed up prettily cause I’ll be too anxious about spoiling them. But my tootsies deserve a soothing once in a while.

Yesterday was the once in a while. I had already decided earlier in the week that I wanted to do this, but kind of hemmed and hawed about money and time for a few days. Then the inefficiencies of Ghana Water Company and Ghana Electric Company conspired to drive me out of the house, so off to Yakels I went.

Yakels is a local beauty salon located in community 11. For a long time, I’d pass by it on my way to the butcher shop and really wanted to check it out. But I have to admit, I was kind of anxious about going in. It’s a great big white building, with blue tinted windows so that you couldn’t see in. The parking lot never had a car in it either, so that kind of made me a bit nervous. Why was it never busy? Was it expensive? Was it crap? I had to find out. The experience was, um, different.

Inside, everything is white, glass and chrome, with scattered bowls of sea shells and candles floating in water. Very pretty. Very American. They’ve even got the beauty salon de rigueur magazines on the table. You know the kind, the ones with the oddly shaped and geometrically-styled haircuts that no self-respecting middle-aged white woman would be caught dead in. In truth, even if I had wanted one of those haircuts, I couldn’t have gotten one there. They still can’t cut obroni hair.

So Belinda takes me back for a pedicure. I was hoping I wouldn’t be sitting in a plastic chair soaking my feet in a plastic basin, and my wishes were answered. It looks just like one of the pedicure chairs you’d find in the U.S. and that’s very comforting. Unlike in the states, though, the controls for the chair are in the hands of the staff. Now, I like to play with the remote, and see what the chair offers – you know, massage or heat. I’m thinking this remote has only up and down and back and forwards. Then Belinda asks if I want the massage feature. “Why not,” I say, I love those magic finger massage things. YIKES!!! It’s like someone stomping a half a dozen bocce balls into my spine! I’m practically jumping out of the seat. Fortunately, Belinda sees my discomfort (how could she not, I was practically jumping into her lap) and turns it off. Who the hell was this chair made for? Put this contraption in a chiropractor’s waiting room and he’s gonna make a fortune!

After I realign my back, I settle in and put my toes on the towel. I’m not really conversant with pedicure procedure, because she’s got to keep telling me what to do. “Please, put your foot in the water” or “put your foot here,” or “bend your ankle” or “your other foot now.” I’m pathetically clueless.

First order of the day is to file down my nails. I have to admit, I let them get kind of long. Instead of clipping them regularly I figure I’m eventually going to get a pedicure and I really want to get my money’s worth. As a result, they’re kind of lunatic long by the time I’m in the chair. This, by the way, is not scary to Belinda. A lot of Ghanaian woman have amazingly long toe nails. Freaky looking toe nails, if you want my opinion.

So she pulls out the nail file and starts filing. There’s no clipping here; if that’s what you want, you have to ask for it. Naturally, the filing doesn’t really shorten my nails, but at least they’re not lunatic long anymore. Once filed down, she gestures for me to put both feet into the basin which has got some of the hottest water you’ve ever felt and she squirts in some Palmolive soap to make it all bubbly. And I’m thinking (guiltily) that Alex would love this. Five minutes of soaking and she has me hoist one slippery foot up.

Then, the torture really begins. Holding firmly to my foot, she grabs a butter knife (you will never hold a butter knife in your hand ever again and think only of food) and starts to scrape the soles and sides of my feet. My tootsies are tender, and this to me is nothing short of an assault. But apparently, its how Ghanaian beauticians are taught to scrape off dead skin. You’re thinking “Ouch and yuchh” (in that order), right? “Have they no pumice?” you wonder. Yes! They have pumice and lava rocks and lotions that slough off dead skin, but apparently there’s a whole gauntlet of torture tactics that has to be run through, and this is just the first weapon.

I’ll spare you the rest of the gory details, suffice to say, it hurt. I’m sure an electric sander would have hurt less.

But then she moved into the next phase and that earlier pain was forgotten for this new pain. This was the torture tactic popularly known as cuticle cutting! Fortunately, she only cut me twice, once on each foot and they did stop bleeding before I left. The pain almost entirely went away, except when she whipped out the nail polish remover to take off the too-thick polish she attempted to put on me.

Finally, the time had arrived for putting on the polish. I had chosen a pretty bright orange, but then I also liked this lighter apricot polish with sparkles in it. I had a bright idea that the apricot could go over the orange polish, like pretty layers.

Only it didn’t work out like that. Belinda was more than willing to try it out, putting the first coat on. Only she discovered the polish was too thick and had to remove it, hence the repeat pain of the cut cuticle. But she came back with a thinned out version and went ahead and painted it the way I asked.

I hated it. It looked horrible; especially when she “cleaned” up the edges. It looked like all of my toe nails were bleeding, because you could only see the orange along the edges. Of course, me being the non-trouble-maker that I am, I told her it was “great.” Then I went home and took the nail polish off. All that fun for only 15 Ghana cedis.

I realize that getting a pedicure is kind of like having children. You don't remember anything about the pain when you see the beautiful result.

This was one ugly baby. I think I’ll let Alex have a go at it. It certainly can’t be any worse.