A Cameroonian and a Ugandan walk into a hair salon…

A hilarious encounter between two women united by immigration but lost in translation

Rose was from Cameroon. I’m from Uganda. On opposite sides of the continent of Africa, I grew up speaking English, while she spoke French, the languages of our colonial masters.

Now here we both were, just outside Washington D.C., thousands of miles away from our respective homes, finding kindred spirit in our shared status as immigrants, but our language barriers making communication nearly impossible.

What little French I once spoke had been reduced by obsolescence to just a few catchphrases: Bonjour. Oui. Tue es belle. Rose’s English was as challenged as my French. I had taken the day off work to get my hair braided in a protective style that would give my coils a break from combing for two months, maybe three if I pushed it.

I had found Rose’s phone number on a large red sign hanging on the window of a store in a rumpled Takoma Park, Md., strip mall months earlier and had saved it for a time such as that.

The hair salon was a narrow but long rectangular space shared by the female braiders and a couple of neatly dressed barbers — both clearly hailing from the motherland if their accents and mannerisms were anything to go by. The walls were covered in light-damaged posters of different hairstyles, many outdated. A small TV hung from an anchor at the far corner of the room, playing what looked like a Nigerian movie that was barely audible over the Congolese music playing from a set of speakers I couldn’t locate.

Rose seemed shy and out of place. So far, I had managed to talk her down from $150 to $120 – we both knew no one pays the full price. But our language differences made it hard for me to explain to Rose the style I wanted or for her to lay out to me my options. Awkward smiles and hand gestures weren’t driving the messages home.

A Black beauty magazine lay on top of what must have once been a telephone stool. As if by telepathic instruction from our shared ancestors, we both reached for it at once. Surely there would be at least one photo in there we could point at. We laughed at our struggle. Laughing was our common language by this time.

Rose’s Ethiopian co-worker who had been busy weaving away at a customer’s head noticed our tortured encounter and stepped in. She pointed to a beauty supply store across the street on New Hampshire Avenue.

“Maybe you can go there together and pick the style of braids you want,” the Ethiopian said.

Together, the Cameroonian and I scooted across the street, dodging cars and laughing like teenagers going to fetch water from the well.

The store features a wide variety of synthetic and human hair braids, wigs, weaves, and all the paraphernalia needed for the delicate and intricate management of Black women’s hair.

“Ponytail! Ponytail!” I shout as I spot the braids I want on a shelf at the back of the store. I don’t know why I’m shouting. Rose follows me. She doesn’t know why I’m shouting.

“Ooooh!” Rose exclaimed as if saying, “If only you had just said that earlier.”

She picked up four packs of the curled synthetic braids and we darted back across the street.

“I wish I speak English,” she told me.

I laugh.

“I wish I could speak French,” I responded.