We had heard that this barber shop, the one in the Nickles Arcade in Ann Arbor, knew something about cutting Ethiopian hair. An Ethiopian friend of ours had gotten his hair cut there, and he liked them. I've gotten my hair cut there before, and they do a good job and are always very nice to everyone who comes in. Plus they are extremely cool, in a kind of low-key way. You can see what I mean from their pictures, which are here, if you scroll to the bottom. Believe it or not, James has more tatoos than Brian.
Anyway, this is a cool place. Perfect for Feleke. When we went in, almost the whole crew was there. Brian and James were sitting in their chairs, Bob and Jessica had customers with them, and Mel was "up," as they say, or next in line. So we took him.
I thought Mel did a great job. I had to talk Feleke through it, though. There were moments when he was completely unsure about how it was going. At one point, staring in the mirror with consternation on his face, Feleke literally whispered this to me: "Is he learning to cut hair on me?" Luckily, his English was a little garbled and Mel couldn't make out exactly what he was saying. Or maybe he did but just ignored it. Mel seemed pretty chill about the whole hing. Ruth Ann sat calmly in a chair during the whole event, looking up occasionally to give an encouraging smile--as I struggled to figure out exactly what Feleke wanted Mel to do next.
At the end of it, Feleke seemed okay with how it turned out. He did, however, turn to me afterwards, once we were outside of the barber shop and walking through the Arcade, and say that there was a barber shop in Addis where they would do a much better job in half the time for a tenth the cost. He may be right, but I'd put my money on Mel.
