Why is Costa Rica Hating on My Hair???

"If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again." -William Edward Hickson

Coming to Costa Rica I thought my “pelo natural” would be in heaven because of all this heat and humidity.  Boy was I wrong!  Costa Rica and I have been in a constant fight since I’ve gotten here and I think Costa Rica is winning. Every day poses a new hair challenge, whether my hair decides to shrink and hide, be consistently dirty and dusty or rain after I actually take time to put it in a style. I’ve spent countless hours searching on the Natural Hair group on facebook and looking on Youtube for “ayuda”… and hope! I’ve even put in an emergency shipment with my roommates for some products hoping it will help. SN: Shame on my roommate Neli, who told me not to bring Jessica2 (my wig); we would be best friends right now!

A couple weeks ago I braided my hair in some plaits or “Celie” braids as I call them; yes after Celie on The Color Purple. I left them in for 5 days and just pinned them back into different styles. In the States, I usually do this at night and have a cute braid out the next day, but deciding to be lazy and hoping for definition left them in. When I took them out my hair looked like “basura caliente”! I mean my hair had absolutely NO definition. All of the volunteers thought it was cute, but of course I knew better…

For my next experiment, I did a style with two strand twists and to my surprise it came out cute! However, a style that would have been cute and lasted a week did not hold up so well.  After 3 days it started to look kind of raggedy and I should have retwisted some of them again. Nevertheless I kept it in almost a week, NOT because it was cute, but out of sheer laziness.

My latest trial is to rinse my hair with conditioner, put in a leave-in conditioner, apply coconut oil to my ends and then some curling smoothie to my entire head.  I then put my hair in 3 ponytails to stretch it. While my hair is soft, the attempt was another FAIL at cuteness and ended up in a pulled back afro.

One day Costa Rica will not be a hater…one day while I’m here my hair will be cute …

Black Girl in a Different World

“Thankfulness is the soil from where joy grows.” -Unknown

I wake up every morning to the sun shining and a tropical oasis outside my window.  I can walk out of the house and have my pick of fresh fruit off the tree: mango, limes, star fruit or whatever I can reach. More importantly the walk to a beautiful white sand beach is only 5 minutes away and I can choose which one to visit because there are several nearby. I’ve been in Costa Rica for almost two weeks now and while at first glance it looks like paradise there are definitely some things I have to get used to.

No AC

The average temperature is 82 degrees, yet being so close to the equator makes it feel a lot hotter…something like what I suppose hell feels like.  I often feel like I’m the only one sweating or at least the only one complaining about it. Your best bet is to sit in front of a fan, but we know that just helps circulate more hot air. Not even a window unit in sight. A few days ago I rode in a car with air conditioning and I thought I had won the lottery!

Dirt Roads

I have lived in the south and even played outside everyday as a kid, but I have never seen this much dirt and dust on my body before. Not even riding ATVs through mud in Jamaica resulted in this level of dirt.  From my knees down is a totally different color from the dust. Whenever I feel ashamed I just look at everyone else and realize this is normal here.

Cold Showers

Now with it feeling like hell and all one would think that a cold shower would be refreshing…WRONG!!! No matter how hot I am, my body goes into shock every time! Luckily this exfoliating body wash makes me feel clean because I refuse to stick my whole body underneath the shower head. Maybe an arm or leg, but never the whole body. I settle for saturating my wash rag fifty million times. Not to mention with the amount of sweat and dirt that you accumulate throughout the day requires taking several showers: No Bueno.

So thankful for the small things, that bring joy to my life.