Kuafor Conversations

If you spoke Turkish, you'd know that my post's title used alliteration. "Kuafor" means "hairdresser" in Turkish. Today Esther and I went to get haircuts. She's been begging for her yearly bob and she really wanted Heybet (who leaves on Friday morning) to see it before she leaves. Mind you, Heybet's hair is down to the bottom of her back. I guess Esther is all about shock value. We have a nice guy in our neighborhood who cuts our hair. When we moved here, he cut Annika's hair for the very first time. She was nearly 3, but her springy little curls from Singapore's humidity ceased to exist in this arid climate. The day after we arrived here, I began to think her hair looked like that horrid doll Chucky from that horror flick I have not/will not see. Anyway, he thought she was so very cute and blonde, he would not charge me for the cut. So, we still patronize his business. Our conversation is always the same. He asks me if he should move to New York (he speaks no English). He asks me how much hairdressers make in New York. I tell him maybe $100 a haircut sometimes. He asks me how he can move to New York. I try to explain how much they must pay in overhead. I tell him I am from a different state where you might only pay $20 for a haircut. Same conversation every time. Then he asks me how I want my hair, and I tell him, "Whatever you think." I tend to be very trusting when I get my hair cut. Then I pay him about the equivalent of US$10. But this time, our conversation was different. He asked me if I went to the church around the corner. I told him I did. He said, "Do you know it is being torn down?" This was news to me. I am trying my hardest to piece together what he is saying, but it sounds like they are tearing that building (in which our church meets) down to build something bigger. I tell him I'll ask about it, that I hadn't heard that. Then I ventured out. I asked him if this neighborhood liked our church being here. He said, "Sure. It's no problem." Then I ventured out further and said, "So, if the neighborhood is ok with us, why do we have rocks and Molotov cocktails thrown at our church?" He said, "Because these people who do this are not very bright." I told him, as best I could, that we wanted to be helpers in this neighborhood, that we gave out blankets and coal to poor people. He said, "We know." I enjoyed that conversation more than the New York one.