“I AM a very ordinary lady,” Mma Holonga began. “I did not do very well at school, as I have told you. When other girls were looking at their books, I was always looking at magazines. I liked the fashion magazines with all their pictures of bright clothes and smart models. And I specially liked looking at pictures of people’s hair and of how hair could be braided and made beautiful with all those beads and henna and things like that.

“I thought it very unfair that God had given African ladies short hair and all the long hair had been taken by everybody else. But then I realised that there was no reason why African hair should not be very beautiful too, although it is not easy to do things with it. I used to braid my friends’ hair, and soon I had quite a reputation amongst the other girls at school. They came to see me on Friday afternoons to have their hair braided for the week-end, and I would do it outside our kitchen. The friends would sit on a chair and I would stand behind them, talking and braiding hair in the afternoon sun. I was very happy doing that.

“You’ll know all about hair braiding, Mma. You’ll know that it can sometimes take a long time. Most of the time I would only spend an hour or two on somebody’s hair, but there were times when I spent over two days on a design. I was very proud of all the circles and lines, Mma. I was very proud.

“By the time I was ready to leave school, there was no doubt in my mind what I wanted to do for a living. I had been promised a job in a hair salon that a lady had opened in the African Mall. She had seen my work and knew that I would bring a lot of business because I was so well-known as a hair braider. She was right. All my friends came to this salon although now they had to pay for me to do their hair.

“After a while I started my own business.