MAN IN THE HOOD: A first-hand experience with salon gossip

Last Saturday, I spent a whole day in a salon and ended up getting a crash course in gossiping, otherwise known as mushene.

No, I was not there to get a weave or braids. I wasn’t getting a Kagwe Mungai hairstyle either. My mother would call several pastors to pray for me and exorcise any demons that may have invaded me if I ever did that.

I was there because of my friend Timothy aka Timo. He runs a successful salon business in the estate. I am not sure why he chose a salon instead of an ultra-modern kinyozi. Given how much I know him, I’ve always felt it’s because he wanted to be around women all the time.

However, he insists that it’s all about smart economics. Men only use about Sh200 to get a haircut while most women don’t spend less than Sh1,000 to get their hair done.

Let me just believe him.

So, Timo asked me to watch over his salon for a day because he would be away handling a family issue. He said he wanted me to be there because some of his employees tend to steal money when he isn’t around.

All he wanted me to do was to count the number of clients that would get their hair done and let him know. I couldn’t refuse.

AMICABLE

Timo’s business means a lot to him. That salon is to him what Tesla is to Elon Musk. He has put a lot of work into it and he can talk about it for hours.

He has also supported me several times so it was a case of friends having each other’s backs.

On that Saturday, I sacrificed my sleep and showed up at the salon very early in the morning. I settled in a corner and kept myself busy with a laptop.

I made sure to reassure the employees that I was no threat and that I was only standing in for Timo until the evening. They were at liberty to do anything they wanted.

Upon seeing that I was amiable and cool, they continued with their work. It wasn’t long before they began trading mega gossip.

STANDOUT GOSSIPER

I had heard several times before, that hairdressers are the maestros of mushene, followed closely by ‘Wamama wa Ploti.’

I have experienced the ploti gossip several times but I had never experienced salon gossip -- until last Saturday. They gossiped about too many topics that my brain almost gave a “Memory full, please free up disk space to continue saving” message.

The standout gossiper was a lady by the name Caro. She was a know it all – a reservoir of endless content. She could churn out gossip at a speed of 20 stories per hour.

She was like a walking blog only that her stories were about real hood people and not celebs. One angry customer even made sure to remind her to focus on her job and stop talking too much.

FAKE NEWS
Then there was Bobo. She was like the CNN and Al Jazeera of gossip. She had all the foreign stories.

She knew which maid stole from which employer in estates that were several miles away. She even had stories from other counties.

I cannot forget Flo either. Flo was the ‘Dutchess of Fake News’. The moment she told a story, everyone would immediately know she was lying. Donald Trump would have a good time lambasting her.

Worse still, she wouldn’t take any questions. She wanted the others to consume what she was feeding them blindly. She would dodge any efforts by them to make her verify her claims.

It’s like she just didn’t want to be left out in the gossiping process so she did her best to manufacture stories. Even ogre tales in primary school storybooks were more believable than Flo’s narrations.

POLISHED STORYTELLER

The most polished storyteller of them all was Pauline. This was because she had specialised in one area – house matters.

She didn’t meander all over the place. She wasn’t a gossiper of all stories and a master of none. She had her facts right. It’s like she had a PhD in Domestic Affairs.

She would give exact details of what happened at a specific house at a specific time. Apparently, she had reliable reporters on the ground. Guess who the reporters were? Maids.

By the time Timo came back, I felt like I could write a 90-page gossip newspaper all by myself. I had so much information on so many people.

I wonder how much Timo knows, given that he hears these stories daily.

Hairdressers and salon employees in general need to tone down the gossiping, it’s too much. Or maybe we should just cut them some slack. It’s a vice that comes with the job.