Crossing Cultures,  Daily Life in Lima

The Haircut (El Fotografo gets sheared)

El Fotógrafo has an erratic relationship with his hair. He goes for weeks without doing much of anything to it, letting it sprout in extravagent clumps, and then one day, he will be struck by a severe urge to cut his hair Now.

This can be hazardous because EF has a cowlick. It’s not something a person can trim on his own, but EF doesn’t see it that way. I’ve found him in the bathroom with a pair of not-very-sharp scissors hacking at his temples, silver and black hairs falling into the sink.

He’ll step back and admire his handiwork in the mirror, raking his fingers through the cropped cowlick. He doesn’t take a mirror to the choppy back. 

I will mention something about the unevenness, and he will give me an annoyed look.

Later at that day, or perhaps the next, he will disappear for several hours, giving himself over to a professional who will even things out. Taming the Wild Tuffet, I call it.

I didn’t pay attention to EF’s hair as we got ready to leave for vacation last month. But something I said in relation to the CNN “Planet in Peril: Battle Lines” program must have activated EF’s grooming gene because he pulled the disappearing act the day before we flew to Miami. 

At 7 p.m. he returned to the house looking like a Marines recruit, sheared to within 1 millimeter of his scalp.

What happened? I screamed.

“I told the guy at the salon to cut it like that guy on CNN.”

” ‘That guy on CNN’?” It took a few seconds to sink in. “Oh, Anderson Cooper. Why would you want your hair cut like Anderson Cooper?”

“Why not?” EF said defiantly.

Then I remembered. While watching the segment on La Oroya, I had mentioned that I had thought Anderson Cooper was cute. “Like a bunny,” I had said, meaning that Anderson Cooper was adorable in a well-seasoned, nonthreatening way (nonthreatening for EF) but EF hadn’t understood. He thought I meant Anderson Cooper was hot.

EF was trying to emulate the look, to please me.

“No, no, no!” I said. “You don’t want to get your hair cut like Anderson Cooper.”

Suddenly it became clear to me. “That new Bond guy. You should have asked to have your hair cut like him. That would have looked good.”

“Not Anderson Cooper?” EF said warily. He thought this over. “I don’t care. It’s my hair. I like it short.”

Shaken, not stirred

He ran his fingers through the little stubs, the scalp showing through. “This haircut will last a long time,” he said, smugly.

“Dad got his hair cut like Anderson Pooper,” yelled El Hijo from the other room.

 The haircut did hold up during the holidays. After two weeks, it had grown into an approximation a civilian’s haircut. I convinced El Fotografo to buy a jar of overpriced Aveda hair pomade, in an Orlando mall, and he began slicking down the cowlick with that. His hair began looking sleek and rugged, a hard-to-pull of combination, kind of like Daniel Craig.

I like it.

Looking at pictures now of Anderson Cooper and Daniel Craig, I see they both have cowlicks. Their haircuts aren’t that dissimilar; the differences are that AC’s hair is receding more at the temples and his head is longer than DC’s. But evidently it’s a mistake to tell a Limeño hair stylist to cut your hair “like that CNN guy.”

I am an American writer who lived in Lima for seven years (2007-2014), where I covered Andean traditions, melting glaciers and daily life in the capital for Miami Herald, MSNBC and Huffington Post. I now live and work in northern Florida where I champion climate change advocacy and compassionate, affordable eldercare.

3 Comments

  • Ward Welvaert

    So much fun…

    The very first time I got a haircut here in Peru – with some hesitation due to my limited Spanglish – I walked into a random barber shop and the guy, who I’d never seen before, asked “Como siempre?” To which I happily replied “Si! Como siempre.”

    That was easy – been getting a haircut there ever since. “Como siempre” 🙂

  • Barb

    LOL, Ward. What a funny story.

    I didn’t have such good luck trusting a Lima hair stylist the first time. I asked for a short cut with blonde highlights, and ended up with a small trim and dark auburn hair. I was speaking Spanish the whole time, but the stylist and his team of assistants had their own idea of what I should look like. Either that, or I wasn’t making any sense grammatically.

    It was the ultimate gringa’s nightmare in a Peruvian salon.

  • Mauricio

    I am sorry, but I get very offended when Americans think “Gringo” means them. It means, at least in Peru, people with blond hair. I’m peruvian, I’m blond. Geez.