Inward Renewal

One of the many adventures in adopting Ireen has been learning how to take care of her hair.  Honestly, I’ve really enjoyed it!  I’ve learned so much and am always eager to learn more or better ways of doing things. Recently, I decided it was high time I learned how to relax Ireen’s hair by myself.  I’d seen Zambians do it a number of times and had asked a lot of questions.  It seemed straight forward enough.

Admittedly, I was nervous.  I’ve heard horror stories of damaging the hair and scalp.  I was careful not to get the cream solution on her scalp and left it in for the minimum amount of time.  As I was washing the relaxing cream out of her hair I noticed my fingernails were yellow.  Gross yellow, too.  Just think fungal nail yellow.  I also had a small cut on my thumb that was throbbing!

Since Tim and I were going on a double date that night, I clipped my nails as far down as I could and then painted over them to cover the yellow.  Later that night I asked my Zambian friend about it and she said rather incredulously, “You didn’t wear gloves?”

Yeah…that would have been smart.  Ireen’s hair was fine at least.