Haircut

Haircuts are simple, right? Not so fast.

About a month after moving to Belgium several years ago, I went for a haircut down the block from my house. When I walked into the shop, I asked if anyone spoke English. Neither of the two women cutting hair did. I was about to leave when a guy sitting there said he did. Ok I can do this.

One of the customers left and I was next. I sat down and the girl put the wrap around me. Then the guy that spoke English got up, kissed the girl about to cut my hair, and walked out. I felt it was too late for me to leave. How bad can it be? Well, the girl said something during the haircut and I agreed. I had a bad hair day for the next two weeks.

Sometime later, in Morocco I asked around where to get a haircut. There is a barber about 100 meters from Dar Borj Dahab, my house in Fez. The barbershop is basic, with a huge TV playing all the time at top volume. The haircuts are good. In the summer most Moroccans get a very short cuts, almost a shave. Luckily I just get a trim. My cut in Morocco was always about $2.00.

When I arrived in Kampong Cham, I asked where to get a haircut, and was directed to a place just a block away from the main market in the front room of an old house. The rest of the house is marginally blocked off with old sheets draped over the windows. There are four chairs. Three of them have cement bases and a chair that swivels but doesn't go up or down. The fourth chair has a metal base. All of the chairs have seen more than a half century of hard living. The seats are red plastic, patched with black tape; the armrests are taped onto rusted metal rails. The foot supports look ready to fall off at any time. Someone had welded on a bar on the bottom of the foot rest that almost reaches the floor so that when a patron puts his weight on it, the bar supports the weight.

The hair-washing area is unique. Water comes through a garden hose running from a barrel supported by a rickety metal stand. You lie back into a green tray that catches the water, which drains into a bucket on the floor.

The counter in front of the mirror holds the barber's tools, everything a bit old and well used. In all my years of having a haircut, this is the only place I've been where the barber uses old-fashioned hand-squeeze clippers.

The haircut is good and only cost me $1.00.