NO PAIN, NO GAIN

On of the fastest growing businesses is that of salon businesses. People who establish salons usually do so in urban or peri-urban areas where the access to electricity supply and water is more assured.

So imagine my surprise when I encountered the women of Mwesigwa Women’s Group, in Jinja, in June 2009. I had travelled there in June 2009 to see for myself what a thriving salon in a rural area looks like. The salon operates from a brick building with a corrugated iron roof. It has two reasonably sized wooden windows and a large wooden door, which let in adequate light. The room is well lit and airy. There are a myriad of hair products that are used to colour, straighten or curl hair. I expect to find these things in any decent salon. There were also three women at the salon. Two wanted Betty, the salon owner, to apply relaxer and therefore straighten their hair while another woman had asked for a dyeing service. Betty uses an old toothbrush to apply dye to her client’s short hair!

Like you I was wondering how washes and dries/styles the hair of her customers. Betty who has seven children wakes up very early and walks several miles from her home to fetch water for use around her home and in her salon. “Sometimes I am lucky to get help from water-vendors who deliver the water to my gate. This saves me a lot of time. When the rain falls I collect and save the runoff water in the large black plastic tank behind my house,” she says.

When Betty wants to wash her client’s hair, she asks them to bend over a basin placed outside the salon. She then pours water through the hair until the hair is clean. She then places the rollers in the client’s hair.

Betty does not have access to electricity or solar power. I found that I was both inspired and terrified by the ways that hair is dried in such circumstances. After applying dye to the hair of one client, this client sits on a stool outside, in the sun, for ten to 20 minutes. The dye is then washed off as mentioned above. To dry hair with rollers, Betty uses a hot charcoal burner. She asks her client to sit near a charcoal burner and shift her body periodically until her entire head is dry. I found this to be very demanding on the part of the client. In any case no one really fancies sitting in the sun and drying her hair over a hot charcoal burner.

I took one important lesson from this experience - which there is always a way for those who have the will. I also learnt that this business grows because of the joint sense of community spirit. Betty’s clients understand the challenges of rural living such as lack of access to water. They therefore have no problem bending over a basin. They also know that at the moment there is no other way to dry the hair except using the sun or hot charcoal burner. Betty certainly knows how to improvise.

If you have been thinking of starting a business but worry about where this resource or that will come from or what others will say, think about Betty. You will be inspired.