Shave and a Haircut

I walk past a barbershop on my way to school every day. Even at 9am, it is bustling with activity and groups of men gather around the two simple stools with steaming cups of Nepali chiya from the teashop next door. Peter, another ETA, swears by the 30-cent shaves and praises the invigorating head massages (which, as a bystander, actually look quite painful, so we just take his word for it!).

Yet, last week I discovered that some of my students prefer to skip out on trips to the barbershop in favor of more “original” hairstyles.

Walking into class 6 (yes, the same students who will be hiding away in my duffle bags), my eye immediately landed on Rishi, who was sitting in the front row. What IS that on his chin? I thought.

“Cheers, Miss!” he said mischievously, extending his hand for our daily high-five greeting. As I neared the bench, I could see it was an inch-long lock of hair attached below his lower lip by a piece of Scotch tape.

“Rishi? What…Why…Whose hair is that?” I asked. He grinned up at me, causing half of his makeshift beard to detach from his chin, and shrugged. The sudden commotion from the back of the room, however, immediately revealed the culprits.  

It turns out I had walked into the “Grade Six Shree Mahendra Jyoti Barbershop,” which in the short gap between classes had been full of interested customers. The remnants of this business endeavor were not limited to homemade goatees; a group of boys now sported rather patchy haircuts from a pair of old, rusty sewing scissors.

Needless to say, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind when I introduced the adjective unit a few weeks back. We started by going around the room, talking about hair –color, length and texture – and they enjoyed making up motions to the following chant:

“People, people, many people

All shapes and sizes

Some are short

And some are tall

Some have long curly hair

And some have none all.”

While I admire my students’ entrepreneurial spirit, I’m a bit relieved I got to class before my barbershop boys had a chance to test out the last line!