How Do I Say This?

There are a lot of things I remember about my youth  but one thing that has stuck in my memory has to be those so called aunties, the ones we call aunties but are not our aunties but are aunties via being neighbours, church members, friends mum etc..............the list is endless. These so called aunties and 1 or 2 real aunties made me scared of actually growing up, fear that I would look like a masquerade with a bad weave, or a wig and makeup that looked like it had been done in the dark or by an unwanted toddler.  

Aunty Moyo (who’s name I have changed for obvious koboko reasons) was just the one that stood out most. On a normal Saturday in Miami she decided to stop by at my aunts to do her usual 5-7hours congregation discussion. I remember opening the door and all I saw was RED. She had something red on her head and she felt that red eyebrows, lipstick and blusher was the obvious way to go, did I forget to mention she had red nails as well, red nails that made her look like she was part of a group that only appear at night and it was never to drop presents down the chimney once a year but to make little children cry. I looked at her from head to toe wondering what on earth she must have been thinking. I was 13 at the time and by then I already knew that when your makeup and nail polish match your hair colour and its not Halloween then something can’t be right.

My cousin and I passed appropriate comments and giggles while my aunt tried to keep a straight face when Aunty Moyo told her how she was coming from the beauty salon and how everyone has been looking at her from when she left the salon and how she knows that all the women are jealousing her. Yes Aunty Moyo said jealousing, and she is allowed to make that kind of grammatical error because she is an Aunty with red eyebrows! At that point she turned to me, the eldest of my two cousins and said “what do you think of my hair?” amazed that she actually cared what I thought  I smiled but I was terrified, my biggest problem is that I don’t know how to lie, and everyone has told me that IS my biggest and probably only problem . The truth was the red makeup was one tin but I didn’t understand the hair I couldn’t say if it was braids,  a weave an up do or even finger waves it was like a mixture of everything you could possibly think of. If I looked closely I am sure I would have found dreadlocks and a low cut in there.  Before I could think about what to say and after making my analysis of what was on her head I blurted out “Aunty you look scary” she said “scary ke, this is what is reigning, it’s ok. It’s because your young you don’t know anything”. I remained stunned but couldn’t help but laugh along with everyone else.

 Lets just say 6-8 years (I can’t give you a precise year you will guess my age lol)’ later Aunty Moyo is asking me for advice about her hair, makeup and fashion.

So this memory of my aunty got me thinking how do you tell someone that their makeup, hair or fashion choice is just wrong???