A mobile beauty parlour and the big ambitions of its female owner
“I’m in an English course. Stand by the Restaurant, and I’ll meet you there,” was the message from the beautician I wanted to interview about her mobile beauty parlour. At the designated time, I waited at the designated spot, watching people pass by. I was waiting for a girl whose hands crafted beauty and imagined she’d be more robust and taller than the other girls I saw walk by, carrying books discreetly under their arms. When I called to ask her location, she answered, “Sister, I just got out of the course, and I’m hopping on a taxi. Just wait five minutes.”
So I stayed and observed the hustle and bustle of the busy alley – schools, courses, grocery stores, wheelbarrows, carts, butchers, and more. A shop with a sign that read ‘Domestic Oil’ also sold groceries. Across from it was a religious school, with its own billboards, which promoted its teachings in recitation and interpretation.
Moments later, a tall girl appeared in the distance, her face veiled at the sides but keeping her hair visible. She had already said her name is Marziah*. She didn’t look robust but her skin was radiant. As she gazed around, I called the beautician’s mobile phone and she answered. I gestured toward her, and she led me to another side street. She was in a hurry and seemed full of energy. I asked about her English course. She walked briskly while talking, “It’s 1500 Afghani a month. The teaching is good. I’m studying for the TOEFL exam.” She said that the classroom was in an unassuming location, above a few restaurants and a health clinic, to not attract attention.
She guided me to an old gate, devoid of recognizable colour. On one side, she lived with her family while, on the other, a female tenant lived with her four marriageable daughters. The hairdresser cautiously assured me that no men were inside and I should feel at ease. She carried all her tools with her. “I take everything with me. I’m out all day. Customers call me. I go to familiar houses. I swear by God, sister, if I don’t do these jobs, we’ll starve,” she explains.
Her face looked weary, indicating a lack of sleep. I asked about her life before the Taliban came. She said, “Would you believe it? I supported three families by running a beauty parlour.” She had no choice: she had no father and her mother was sick and bedridden while her siblings were busy with their own lives. Even now, she knows she has to support herself and her mother: “My mother is ill. I manage all the household expenses. I manage whatever is necessary in life through this hairdressing job.”
My mind was absorbed in the hairdresser’s words as loud music suddenly emanated from the tenant’s house, where a girl was dancing behind the window. We both gazed at her joy. “My heart aches for them,” the hairdresser says. “They enjoy themselves but are too young to understand anything.” We both wished those girls were attending school or engaged in something meaningful so their joy and happiness would seem justified.
As the Taliban have banned females from being hairdressers, her work has put her in extreme danger. “Customers had my number, and I didn’t change it so that I wouldn’t lose them. The Taliban found my number and threatened that, if I continued working, they would take me to their spy agency.” After those threats, she transformed herself into a mobile hairdresser to safeguard her livelihood. The mobile hairdresser continues her work, while focusing her energy on more challenging paths ahead of her: “I want to study. I want a scholarship. I’m learning English for the same reason. A person shouldn’t stop learning and fight as long as possible.”
I left the motivated mobile hairdresser and returned to that busy alley, where no one knew about the entrepreneurial woman living nearby.
*Names have been changed to protect the identity of the interviewees and writer. Alma Begum is the pseudonym of a journalist in Afghanistan.
