Gele Lessons

This contraption on my head is known as a gele (pronounced gay lee to my American ears, but I could be wrong). They vary in fanciness and poofiness and weddings is when they are most common, but you see them all the time. Each week we probably have about 4 women with the fancy ones on at church - and these women aren't rich either. I love being behind a bus where the back row is all women crammed in the bus with their geles on.

A few months ago an American Women's Club meeting they had a woman come and demonstrate tying geles and another woman talked about the fashion of geles and how it had changed over the years. She said a Yoruba woman (one of the major tribes) would rather starve than not be fashionable and I kind of believe it. For about $15 I bought my own gele. I wanted her to tie it similar to the one on her table, but it didn't come out that way at all. The latest fashion ones are really stiff and I think the lady only has some control over how they turn out.

A couple of weeks ago we had a young women's activity at church where Blessing's mom came and taught us how to tie them. I am so mad at myself that I forgot my camera because my young women looked really beautiful and so grown up. Some of them got really good at it. I was no good at doing it on others and am not good at doing it on myself, but I know in principle how to tie these now. If I had a third hand I could maybe do it. Sister Eze told the girls, now if your husband is ready to go out he is not going to wait for you to mess with this so you must be quick. She bent her head down and tied hers in like 3 seconds and it looked amazing. They are also good for hiding a bad hair day.