Haircut in a Sea Container - The Sequel

Ousmanne was no more; Madeleine
took up hair cutting.

The shipping container haircut happened during the course of that first year we were in Conakry, Guinea. But first of all, one needs to remember that at that time (2010), the small country of Guinea in West Africa was ranked number 7 on the Failed Nation States Index. A failed state is a political body that has disintegrated to a point where basic conditions and responsibilities of a sovereign government no longer function properly. Likewise, when a nation weakens and its standard of living declines, it introduces the possibility of governmental collapse. To give a point of reference to what a rank of 7 means, Canada is number 168, 10 from the top of 178, which is Finland. So it just goes to show how dismal life in Guinea was. 

When we arrived in Conakry that rainy July afternoon (ah, I remember it well...), the country's government had collapsed and was under military rule, led by an inflated ego-ed testosterone bloated mid-thirty year old army captain, surrounded and supported by a lot of military baby faced and usually very stoned 17 year olds standing around with old but impressive Kalashnikovs. Let's just say that it was not the bestest of welcome mats laid before us when arriving at a new posting. However, today the failed nation state index (now called the fragile state index) currently has Guinea at number 10 and therefore things have gotten a bit better, in the aftermath of the large ego-ed testosterone ladened captain having been shot by one of his stoned 17 year old bodyguards, after which the failed assassination attempt forced the poor captain outside Guinea to convalescence, and subsequently enabling another army dud with a bit more grey matter and less testosterone to grab the reins of power and do his best to keep the powder keg of a country from blowing up until some elections could occur...yup, happens all the time in Africa. Anyways, either things in Guinea are improving or a lot of other countries have moved down and are worst off, but in any case, progress in this tiny West Africa country continues to be slow and always arduous.  So, back in 2010, when we took up residence in Guinea's capital city, what were the chances of finding a barber shop or hair salon in Conakry? Not good. 

Just outside our poor excuse for an apartment building, next to the battered up wheeless truck and the pile of decaying garbage (let's not forget here, a failed nation state, a city of 1,000,000 with no garbage collection...ewwww...), sat an abandoned rusted shipping container. Not too long after our arrival, we noticed one Saturday afternoon that the back panels of the container were open and inside was a young man sitting on a stool with this older looking man clipping away hair on the younger man’s head. Now we’re not talking about one of those newfangled refurbished shipping containers hair salons (yes they do exist, just google 'haircut in sea container' and you’ll get 63,700 results in .67 seconds), but a basic brown empty (well almost) discarded sea container, abandoned in a field, that someone named Ousmanne had squatted and had set up shop for the purpose of cutting hair. That’s right, just Ousmanne, a stool, and a pair of scissors, and whatever other living and non-living thing that would take up residence in an abandoned sea container. 

One day, during what seemed to be one of Ousmanne's off-peak slow days at the Ousmanne Hair Salon/Container, which come to think of it was pretty well every day because every time I saw Ousmanne in his container, he was by himself, a contented man taking refuge in his very own man-cave container, I mustered enough courage to approach him to ask him if he would give me a haircut. 
Ousmanne smiled and told me to sit down on his one and only stool. I sat down and without saying one more word, he clipped away…no mirror, no wrapping me with a cloth apron, no spraying my hair to wet it down, no asking me how I wanted it cut, and above all none of the idle chatter about where I was from, what I did for a living, how was my girlfriend/boyfriend/wife, clothes, sales, temperature, weekend plans, fad diets, price of gas, corrupt politicians, …you know the usual Great Clips small talk that all sane people dread when getting their hair cut. Nope, Ousmanne was on hair cut autopilot and he clipped away for about 10 minutes. 

Suddenly, the clipping stopped, and Ousmanne muttered 'fini'. Ok, now what? I couldn't really tell if he had done a good job or not, but as I ran my hand in my hair I did notice that there was definitely less hair there. It didn't really matter at that point, after all I was in the 7th most failed state on the face of the planet, looking like a well groomed styled gentleman was not at the top of my list of aspirations while in Conakry. I could have looked like a baboon with a bad hair day for all it mattered. 

I asked Ousmanne how much I owed him. He told me to give him whatever I thought the hair cut was worth to me. I hate when people do that. I had no point of reference other than a haircut at Great Clips in Vancouver would have cost me about $15 bucks, with tip. But then, average annual salary back then in Guinea (for the minority of people that actually bring in a salary) was pegged at US$654. I took out a 2000 Guinean Franc bank note, he smiled and his eyes sparkled. Ousmanne was obviously very happy with my offering. It was more like ecstatic; he had hit the jackpot with this first white guy client. 2000 Guinean Francs was worth 25 Canadian cents back then. After that, Ousmanne was no longer seen in his Sea Container Hair Salon. I wonder if the container is still there, next to the wheeless truck?