Coifed

Hello!

Greetings from Dar es Salaam. After a lovely sojourn in the developed world, including a week in Maine, a week in Baltimore, two weeks in NYC, and a week in Paris, I found myself on the lovely island of Reunion.

Despite the fact that I enjoy calling Reunion France's Guam, it's actually more like France's Hawaii, inasmuch as it's a proper French Department. Although, given that it is located in the middle of the Indian Ocean (east of Madagascar, near Mauritius), there is a relatively sizable landmass (Africa) between continental France and it's tropical vacation-destination. Still, if you've been to Hawaii and France, you can pretty much imagine what it's like: tropical volcanic island, economically disadvantaged "native" underclass (here not really native, but Creole -- the post-colonial progeny of intermarried African, Indian and Arab slave populations), plus lots of boulangerie's, and ample wine and cheese.

I liked it.

I was staying with my friend Helen. She's been helping me define my hippie tendencies since high school, and is now in Reunion as part of France's Language Assistant Program. This means that she, and a variety of other expats, enjoy the tropical climes while slaving away at a full 12 hours of class time each week, for a salary that we calculated to be 35$ per hour. It's a hard life. Oh--and they were just finishing up 6 weeks paid vacation.

Helen lives with an Aussie (hi Laura), and a Spaniard (hi Anna). Anna's boyfriend Toni was also visiting (Hola Toni). Languages necessary for person to person communication included english, french, spanish, catalan, and wild gesticulation.

We decided to go scuba-diving.

I have vivid memories of tropical family vacations, my bearded father, snorkeling, and the use of copious amounts of Vaseline to prevent mask-leakage. I decided, instead, to shave off my mustache.

This would be about 10pm on January 24th.
and then
This would be about, oh, 1020pm.
I let that style linger for about an hour, and decided the beard was doomed as well.
The following night, having completed our scuba adventure, and having had the day to decide that my hair looked unfortunately long without the aid of the beard for scale, we continued the process.

This was the first haircut I had ever been given simultaneously by two people, one being Helen, and the other being her Austrian friend, Elisabeth.

Tip: Be careful about letting someone you're trying to flirt with give you a haircut.

Still, things turned out well, although I'm not sure the picture does justice to the asymmetry, to which I'm still becoming accustomed. Perhaps I'll just have to develop a crush on a more symmetrically minded individual and let them have a go at it.

So here's The Ben, 2008 model, rolled out slightly late. No more Yesu catcalls for me.

See you in Tabora?