“Young lady, let me braid your hair,” the svelte Jamaican woman said to a child who was sitting across from me on a snorkeling boat in Jamaica. The child must have been about 7 or 8 years old. She was very thin with shoulder length brown straight hair. She was with her mother, an overweight tall woman with very large feet.
The little girl smiled. She looked at her mother, got her mother’s approval and shook her head furiously. “Only after we get back from snorkeling,” the little girl’s mother said.
After we dove into the warm Caribbean waters with our snorkling gear and flippers and saw a slew of assorted tropical fish, I had enough. We had been in the water for almost an hour and I was starting to feel water logged.
Back on the boat, I noticed that the Jamaican woman, who originally targeted the little girl, asked me first if I wanted my hair braided. “No,” I told her. “I have to go to work on Friday.”
She moved on and asked the little girl if she was ready. I sat back in my seat and the Jamaican woman had already started on the girl.
The mother didn’t watch. She looked out into the aqua blue ocean and turned around seldom
“Look mommy, I’m finished!” the little girl said. She was so excited.
“You look beautiful,” the mother said and she reached into the little girl’s wallet and took out a $5 dollar bill. She handed it to the Jamaican woman.
“Oh no,” the Jamaican woman said. “You owe $48 dollars, three dollars a braid.”
The mother’s face turned red. She was obviously furious. When the girl came back to the bench, the mother started to scream at her as if it was the child’s fault. “This is all your spending money for the entire trip,” she said. “And now you can’t buy anything else. What you did was inappropriate.”
The little girl started to cry. I felt so bad. I actually was thinking of reimbursing the mother.
The little girl said, “I’ll get our money back.” And she marched over to the Jamaican woman who already started on another passenger’s hair.
When the little girl got back, she gave her mother $40 dollars. “Did the woman give this back to you?” the mother asked.
“Oh no, another passenger gave me the money,” the little girl said.
“You can’t get money from another passenger! Give it back now!” the mother yelled. The passenger who gave the money to the girl shouted that it was okay. It was a gift, she said.
That evening, we all left our excursions and went back on the cruise ship that took us to Jamaica. I was feeling bothered by the interaction between the mother and her child.
The next day, my son wanted to go ice-skating on the ship. On line, we saw the mother and daughter. The daughter no longer had her braids in her hair and I wondered what happened… I guess one can only guess.
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Awesome, I love braids and they look beautiful in that picture! My sister went to Jamaica recently and had the same experience. Rock on girl!
Lisa 😎