Cabelo Horizonte

The minifro gets old--real old.

It was time for a cut.

Normally, the metro station escalator transports people onto the hot asphault like a Krispy Kreme conveyor belt. But after weeks of ceaseless rain, it's a careful, tedious transition. It's more like walking around Soviet Russia after the Cold War. Only instead of landmines, you have to tiptoe around muddy pee-puddles. Post-drizzle downtown is a repulsive realm.

I'm not more than 2 streets from my class when I get the text. "Luis would liked to cancel class." Ignoring the conjugation error, I go to my contingency plan--haircut!

Hopping over a blueish-grey pond and what looks like a rat's tail, I arrive at a salon.

In Portuguese, the word for hair is cabelo. Mysteriously, the word for hairdresser is cabeleireiro. That's 2 eiros! Why does it get 2 eiros?

I find the perfect cabeleireireireiro--an unassuming little spot run by two grey-haired men in their 60's.

After sitting in silence for the trim, I reach to sneak a picture of my stylist when he pulls out a straight razor. I've never had anyone put a blade against my skin, so I decide not to risk it and I slide the camera back in my teaching bag.

For some reason, I had always thought straight razors wouldn't work on me. Like my skin was somehow more fragile than everyone else's and the barber would pop it like a tomato sauce-filled balloon. I was wrong.

The man moved with enough precision and skill to sculpt a porcelain doll. By the end, my head felt like it had been in the hands of a hair God. Haircules. Okay, a hair demigod.

Okay, Rio. Enough rain. My scalp is ready for some sun.