Manicures and the Third World
A new, and much needed, rule of thumb is to always bring your own fingernail clippers when visiting a Third World Country. Finding myself in need of their services over the past week or so, I decided to set out on a mini-adventure to purchase my personal manicure device.
It was very difficult to describe, even with my excellent mastery of Kiswahenglish, for what it was that I was looking. After blankly staring at me for thirty or so seconds, the nice lady behind the counter at the “super market” (read, Circle K wannabe) referred me to another nice lady who proceeded to try to sell me fingernail polish. When I finally got it across to her that, no, I did not want to decorate my nails, I just wanted to cut them, she informed me that they are not carried at the supermarket. If I truly wanted fingernail clippers (she seemed not to understand why I would want such a thing), I would have to venture into town on the overcrowded and usually death defying dala dala.
As I had a giant “please mug me for this” bag with me, and didn’t have any desire to negotiate Dar in the rain, I left her counter with a new plan on how to become famous. As soon as I arrived at the airport in New York, I would contact Guinness and allow them to photograph me and my world’s longest fingernails. Perhaps I should do this in Amsterdam, if I remember correctly, the Guinness book of records is based in London so I might as well save them a little trouble and have them meet me in Europe.
I was busily formulating this plan at the checkout buying the necessities of life…the first q-tips that I’d seen in the past month and my nutritious lunch of a chocolate covered ice cream on a stick (you can die of malnourishment in Africa, but you’ll love every bite) when, under the nearby glass case, I saw them…fingernail clippers--on a keychain. Not only were they a brilliant combination of two of the most necessary devices known to mankind, but they also had the picture of a famous (I guess) football star looking mighty victorious AND, on the stationary part of the lever that forms the fingernail clipper, a coke top opener.
As there was only one of these ingenious jack-of-all-trades devices left in the supermarket, I happily slapped down my 500 shilingi…1600 shilingi after you add lunch and hygiene items...and proceeded to exit the supermarket to the dining area where I would purchase my coke (with lime!) to complete my sugar filled lunch.
The ice cream and coke are pretty much what I expected. The gentleman waiting on me popped the top to my coke, which I had aspired to do myself, but all was well. I watched some BBC news with an Engineering Professor from Kilimanjaro who explained to me that Americans and English are really one and the same--news of that little war in the 1700s apparently hasn’t reached Africa as of yet.
Anyway, on my way back from lunch, I decided to sit under mdegree (a tree aptly named for the study space underneath its branches) and use my new fingernail clippers. They sucked. There’s no other way to put it. They’re plenty sharp enough but the two levers line up so that my fingernails are now cut at an angle much like mat board would be when framing a photograph.
Perhaps this is the way they do it in Africa. Perhaps it’s some sort of fashionable style that I’m just not used to as of yet. Maybe tomorrow my day will be spent politely accepting compliments on the trendiest of my newly cut fingernails. That would rock. But for now, in my not so humble foreigner’s opinion, they suck.
It was very difficult to describe, even with my excellent mastery of Kiswahenglish, for what it was that I was looking. After blankly staring at me for thirty or so seconds, the nice lady behind the counter at the “super market” (read, Circle K wannabe) referred me to another nice lady who proceeded to try to sell me fingernail polish. When I finally got it across to her that, no, I did not want to decorate my nails, I just wanted to cut them, she informed me that they are not carried at the supermarket. If I truly wanted fingernail clippers (she seemed not to understand why I would want such a thing), I would have to venture into town on the overcrowded and usually death defying dala dala.
As I had a giant “please mug me for this” bag with me, and didn’t have any desire to negotiate Dar in the rain, I left her counter with a new plan on how to become famous. As soon as I arrived at the airport in New York, I would contact Guinness and allow them to photograph me and my world’s longest fingernails. Perhaps I should do this in Amsterdam, if I remember correctly, the Guinness book of records is based in London so I might as well save them a little trouble and have them meet me in Europe.
I was busily formulating this plan at the checkout buying the necessities of life…the first q-tips that I’d seen in the past month and my nutritious lunch of a chocolate covered ice cream on a stick (you can die of malnourishment in Africa, but you’ll love every bite) when, under the nearby glass case, I saw them…fingernail clippers--on a keychain. Not only were they a brilliant combination of two of the most necessary devices known to mankind, but they also had the picture of a famous (I guess) football star looking mighty victorious AND, on the stationary part of the lever that forms the fingernail clipper, a coke top opener.
As there was only one of these ingenious jack-of-all-trades devices left in the supermarket, I happily slapped down my 500 shilingi…1600 shilingi after you add lunch and hygiene items...and proceeded to exit the supermarket to the dining area where I would purchase my coke (with lime!) to complete my sugar filled lunch.
The ice cream and coke are pretty much what I expected. The gentleman waiting on me popped the top to my coke, which I had aspired to do myself, but all was well. I watched some BBC news with an Engineering Professor from Kilimanjaro who explained to me that Americans and English are really one and the same--news of that little war in the 1700s apparently hasn’t reached Africa as of yet.
Anyway, on my way back from lunch, I decided to sit under mdegree (a tree aptly named for the study space underneath its branches) and use my new fingernail clippers. They sucked. There’s no other way to put it. They’re plenty sharp enough but the two levers line up so that my fingernails are now cut at an angle much like mat board would be when framing a photograph.
Perhaps this is the way they do it in Africa. Perhaps it’s some sort of fashionable style that I’m just not used to as of yet. Maybe tomorrow my day will be spent politely accepting compliments on the trendiest of my newly cut fingernails. That would rock. But for now, in my not so humble foreigner’s opinion, they suck.