Hairdos, puppies, rites of passage

Melissa had her hair done this afternoon, which might have taken less than three hours if the hairdresser hadn't been doing two or three other women's hair atthe same time. They were very friendly, though, at the Roselin Salon in Majengo, and there was lots of time for Naomy's Botswana-bought car to have it's new Kenyan number plates put on; for bottles of pop to be bought and drunk; for H to enjoy driving around a lot; and for us to find the internet access in the post office in the next village.

To use the four fairly fast connections at the "Posta" in Mbale, we needed scratch cards - like mobile phone top-up cards. But the Posta in Mbale was out of stock, and didn't know when they'd have any again. After a minute's thought, the man at the counter decided to help us out if he could, and rang the Vihiga Posta (in Gambogi, Naomy's nearest village) - who had some!

So Heather drove off to get cards, while Rosa and I wandered around Mbale for a while (Naomy was also having her hair done by this time). Heather got a bit lost, and returned with the cards just as the Posta was closing, but another friendly guy, Kennedy, let us stay on a further hour while he waited for the last postal truck of the day. Heather just happened to ask him if he knew anyone with puppies, and before long we were on our way to his place to see his bitch's litter of nine. The plan, I'm told, is to choose one or two to be guards at Naomy's place, starting just after Christmas.

And did I mention that Naomy's carpenter invited us to come to the celebrations preceding a local circumcision ceremony in a couple of weeks? Only boys are circumsixed here, apparently - Luyha (A group of seventeen tribes, including the Bunyore, which Naomy and almost everyone else we meet regularly belongs to) have never circumcised girls, and the neighbouring Luo don't circumcise at all (we reckon they give bicycles as a rite of manhood instead, given the quantity milling around Kisumu!). The day after the party we're invited to, a group of 10-15 year old boys will eb taken to the woods, where they'll be cut, and where they'll stay, with no contact with women, until they're healed. As Naomy put it, "this is when they are told many bad things," about being 'proper men'.

Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me, unless you want brutalised and terrified men, separated very effectively from women - I can't really imagine what it's like, and I'm scared to ask! But maybe if we go to this party, I'll get a chance to learn more...

- Mark