When there is no hair salon...

It's two and a half months since we arrived on Principe and I have been needing a haircut for a while now. A month ago, out of desperation, I attempted to cut my own hair but found the experience very tricky - anyone who has attempted the same will empathize! I managed my fringe and one underneath layer at the very back of my hair, but cutting the back was near impossible and I was scared off. Since then I have worn my hat a lot - thank goodness for the sunny weather - and my head band, but with renewed motivation- or desperation- yesterday I decided to google 'cutting your own hair' and surprisingly found quite a bit of information on the subject. I found one very helpful link about cutting curly hair into a bob style, which is sort of how my hair was when I arrived, http://sherylcanter.com/wordpress/2009/09/easy-way-to-cut-your-own-hair-in-a-curly-bob/ The description of 'self-cutting your hair' inspired me to try my scissors out again. Not much works quickly and easily on this island but I can say that this experiment certainly did! I managed to complete the task before my 22 month old fully woke up from his nap and he'd already started to mumble as I was beginning. It was very easy to cut my own hair and I am still so surprised it worked out! The long and the short of it is - pun intended - that you wet your hair, brush it carefully into a low pony tail, pull the elastic band down almost to the end of the pony and then blunt cut the hair off. Then you brush all your hair up into a pony at the top of your head - the article describes the position of the pony as if you were being hung from your pony in the circus - pull the elastic nearly to the end and then blunt cut the hair off again. This second pony cut gives you your layers so you can decide how much you want to cut off. This is a very brief explanation and if you are thinking about doing this yourself, have a look at the blog I mentioned earlier. It really was that easy and I am very satisfied that it will get me through to when I can access the next hair salon. All the articles I read said be very sure to use proper hair cutting scissors, but on this island there is zero hope of getting those. I had a sharp pair of fabric scissors which I had brought with me and they seemed to work fine. My mom is a hair stylist so I'm interested to hear what she says about it all...anyway this is the victory I needed this week as the order of groceries I am waiting for has been delayed by the boat blowing up!