Part of my new teaching role includes coaching our student enterprises, particularly leading up to next week’s “Board Meetings.” But I don’t know this until Ryan interrupts me filling out my Nigerian visa application on Wednesday afternoon (The “hair color” dropdown offers Black, Brown, Red, White... guess I’ll go with white?). “Alli, so you’re supposed to be coaching Ten50 right now…” What is Ten50? The on-campus hair salon for students, of course.

Ryan leads me to the lobby of the library, where Ten50 is meeting in their “salon.” The room – no, the closet – is painted red and black, a basin in the corner, with a shelf full of Relaxers and Olive Oil treatments. I’ve only ever seen olive oil in a kitchen. When I peek in through the doorway behind Ryan, Takalani just drops her chin, raises her eyebrows over the rims of her glasses, eyeing “Really, Mr. Ryan? Of all the staffulty coaches, you brought us the one white woman… with…white hair?” Ryan introduces me, their new “coach,” and the team members look down at the floor and then at me, and then at the floor again before continuing the debate of which kinds of hair to buy. You can BUY hair? Apparently, the South Africans have different tastes than the Nigerians, and we don’t even know what the Kenyans want. And then the debate over how to handle the “customer” whose hair started falling off after they used cold water post-relaxer (There’s no hot water pipe in the “salon”...). Hair falling off isn’t exactly a business booster. Yep, you guys are in trouble, I think, as I pick out a split end of my white hair.

Our BUILD curriculum encourages our kids to Believe, Understand, Invent, Listen and Deliver. Now, I was the student, and it was time for me to U. Big time. So I googled. I youtubed. Chris Rock’s documentary Good Hair was blowing my mind. “When you’re hair’s relaxed, the white people are relaxed. If your hair is nappy, they’re not happy.” 

I am starting to doubt whether this counts as valid market research.

Back at home, Anj can’t stop laughing at me. Of the sixteen SEPs I could have added value to, I get paired with the one that I have no frickin’ clue what’s going on. As part of my Understand phase, I decide I’m going to try wrapping my hair the way Anj does with her purple silk. So I shower, drying my hair into a big “white” mane, and then try to tame it by twisting it into a low bun before twirling my head in my coral and pink Marine Layer infinity scarf. I don’t think it gets any whiter than Marine Layer. One, two… five times. I look at myself in the mirror and – damn. I look as legit as this is going to get. Excited, I burst into Anj’s room to show off my accomplishment even though she’s undoubtedly sleeping. But shes not. She’s doubled over the toilet.

Laughing… but nothing about this looks funny to me. Until I look into the toilet and there is her Invisalign retainer, sunk all the way to the bottom of the bowl. Just another evening at 8 Pam Road.

When I wake up in the morning, I can hardly wait to unwrap my soon-to-be smooth locks. But instead, once I wiggle my scalp out of my scarf, I’ve unleashed a beast that looks more like Medusa than Marilyn Monroe. I think I’ll drop the scarf and stick to scrunchies from here on out. As I frantically try to straighten this mess, I open gmail to an email from Betty:

Alli I heard your giving black hair tips? lol seriously? Well here's some to pass along, they should try to deep condition their hair whenever they wash it which shouldn't be too often as we have dry hair. They should use minimal heat or gel on their hair because both cause breakage. If they have a relaxer they should wrap their hair at night or at least wear a scarf. If they have braids they should oil their scalp regularly. Just remember your hair is completely different from theirs, so don't tell them any of the things that you would normally do with yours like wash it every day or wet it&go. Also they should get trims every few months, black women are terrified of scissors near our hair even though split ends are way worse.

I don’t think this qualifies as part of my “coaching” role, but I have to learn somehow, right?

And now it’s Thursday, and my hair appointment (read: bonding experience) with Ten50 is coming up on Saturday. “Ms. Alli, about your, uh, appointment. We don’t want to… you know… blow anything up in the park, yet, you know? So we’re going to just stick to conditioning and maybe some curls. Sound good?” I was sort of hoping for legit braids for that night’s Kanye concert, but I guess “some curls” will have to do.