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She could have been eighteen or thirty-one, plump, with eyes that spelled innocence and hair styled in tiny Bantu knots. Her salon was my saving grace after I had traversed the concrete paved streets of Cotonou in search of a place to fix my hair. I told her — in botched French — that I wanted to wash and braid my hair. I specified that I wanted simple cornrows, with my natural hair, 5 or 6 lines to the back. She charged me 1,000 francs for washing and 500 francs for braiding. I agreed and took the lone seat by her washed-out sink. The salon was dim-lit but set up to give a panoramic view. To the right was a wash sink that could have been clean or dirty without telling, atop a hearth that likely contained flaky remains of innumerable split ends. At the centre, a rectangular mirror stood on a wooden cabinet. It was the type of salon where one washed their hair and had to bask in the sun to let it dry. Mid-wash, she commented that my hair was very dirty — très sale. In French, it sounded so mild I couldn’t wince. “Désolé,” I said in plain apology. “Je suis désolé,” I emphasized. I had water spilling into my ears from my hair, and I kept tilting my head to get the water out. After washing my hair, she quickly wrapped it in a multi-coloured towel. I sat still while she soaked up the towel, rubbing its cotton around my shrunken afro. Taking off the towel, a kinky mass of hair flanked by my scanty hairline stood bare like a teenager hit by the first ray of sun after playing in the rain. I moved away from the wash sink and sat on one of two chairs facing the mirror. She would soon inform me, shyly, that she couldn’t braid. She excused herself to go find another coiffeuse who could braid. But she returned alone. So, I offered to self-braid if she could help with the lines. She agreed, set down containers of olive oil and shea butter, oiled my hair, and sectioned off the first row. Before starting, I asked if she wanted to learn. She smiled a “yes”. I told her to watch. I braided the first cornrow from the baby hair kissing my temple to the back hairs crowning my neck, then I handed her the bouncy ends to practice a box finish. She gladly took it. Through the mirror, I watched her fold my hair in and out of itself. It led to a fibrous twine. I told her, kindly, that I would have to redo her part. She nodded. Her okays were quite assorted. After she sectioned off the second row of hair, she offered to braid. It was a good attempt, and I clapped when she was done. Yet, I had to redo the row because it wasn’t tight; there was more row and less corn. I couldn’t let her try out the next four rows as I was running out of time, but when I was left with the last row, she didn’t bother asking. She simply started braiding right after she made the part. She started slowly, picking three hair strands, and twisting them into one another down the row. I encouraged her with a jaunty “bon, continue” till she stopped mid-hair and shrugged, letting off a partly amused, partly-frustrated expression that I interpreted as “giving up now to try again later.” I watched her undo the unfinished row. She brushed up the lone-standing row and stood aside to watch me braid for the last time. The row turned out to be short-sized, a side-effect of unequal parting and poor foresight from the both of us. It wasn’t too bad. What mattered to me was that my afro could sleep in a protective style until I left Cotonou. But it seemed to bother her — this anti-climactic end. So as to reassure her of my satisfaction nevertheless, I said, “c’est bon” while brushing up my strewn edges, muttering a frantic “non” to her offer of a black hair gel for my edges.