Despite our very limited attempts at communication, my hostess never stopped beaming with foreign hospitality. Many short women bustled around my American counterparts and I, all of them displaying the same kind and cheerful attitude and coaxing us to sit and rest our sore feet, for we had been trekking all day. While all of them spoke some English, most spoke very little, and the words that they could recall were inadvertently truncated and warped by their dialects.

By now, my gracious hostess had returned from rummaging through her small library, holding a tall, thin book in her hands. She presented it to me excitedly. “You look troo book,” she requested, and I took it politely.

The book consisted entirely of pictures of “cool” guys. Some of them were portrayed walking “coolly” down the street, while others were captured from the neck up, showcasing their “cool” hairstyles and staring into the camera with a bold, self-assured audacity. As I continued to browse through the pages, I could tell that the album dated back to the late eighties. However, I accepted that in such a locale as I was now, citizens gladly used whatever they were given, for they did not have the abundance of money or access to “civilization” as people in other areas of the globe. Thus, to possess such a current issue of a book as this was a luxury.

Having come upon a picture I liked, I pointed intently. “That one,” I said definitively. “Dat? Okay,” she replied. “You shower,” she instructed. I stammered in response to her command, “No. But I… I mean…” “Yes, shower,” she smiled. “Okay,” I answered, succumbing to her motherly confidence.

The woman led me over to a plastic sink with a chair in front of it. Having never before used such a device, I sat down facing the sink with my legs on either side of the chair. “No,” she said. “Turn.” I stood up, turned around, and sat back down in the chair, holding my back vertical and my head high in perfect posture. “No,” she repeated disapprovingly. “Down.” Obediently, I lay back further in my chair.

Gently, she washed my hair as I suppose was customary when dealing with the “cool guy” that I had selected. After doing so, she led me back over to my original seat. My hostess then pulled some authentic crafting tools from a drawer and began her work on me. Nearing completion, she asked me a series of questions. “Up or down?” she asked. “Up,” I chose. “Round back or square back?” “Round,” I decided. “You want jail?” she asked. After pausing for a moment, I deciphered the meaning of her question and answered, “Oh. Yes, yes.” I was finally picking up the local jargon.

Once complete, she stood back for a moment to admire her handiwork. “Look good,” she affirmed. “No too high. No too low. Good in mid… You like?” “Yes, yes,” I said happily. She gave me a card with her name on it and a number to contact her and invited me to come back for a visit any time. “Thank you!” I smiled warmly, and resolved to return again some day.

And with that, I left the Wal-Mart Hair Salon.