I guess one of the dead certainties of life apart from death and taxes is that now and then, you will need some sort of a haircut. Even if you have dreadlocks, there’s going to be a time where scissors are going to go somewhere near your head.
It’s a pretty universal thing, the haircut, including various, and sometimes unusual hairstyles for men and women. Just check out some of the attention seeking weirdos in Hollywood who are famous for doing nothing! They seem to come up with all sorts of outrageous cuts and colours to make sure the paparazzi are taking thousands of photos to feature in some trashy tabloid magazine!
Anyway, some of the more unusual aspects of the haircut when travelling in the real world are the makeshift wooden Barber shop in Malawi, the brightly coloured but unsigned hairdresser shop in Tanzania, and the funnily named Cut The Crap salon in Norway.
But if you’re cruising around South Africa, you’ll probably come across this makeshift type of barber shop or hairdressing salon:
Hairstyles For Men – the barber in a tent!
This is a typical snapshot of life in South Africa – improvisation to make things work whatever way you can. I took this photo at Soweto, near Johannesburg. Note that this salon is placed next to a busy public transport interchange where there would be a large volume of people going past – which I think is part of the business model! Lots of walk in customers coming in from the street!
And with many other hairdressing salons like this one in South Africa, advertising is usually some brightly coloured illustrations showing what men’s hairstyles are available from this particular establishment.
If you look closely, this hairdressing salon is basically a steel frame held down by a couple of concrete blocks, with a few canvas sheets creating a permanent hair cutting structure!
The owners/operators would also source electricity by some sort of ingenious means – usually along extension cord that finds it’s way to the nearest power point!
But hey, this is why I love South Africa – lots of people doing whatever they need to do to get by and make a living. There’s nothing pretentious about it either – it’s just the way it is!
I’m feeling like another dose of this great country right now!