July 19, 2004
"Field Haircut"
by Erica Strand

In the two weeks that I've been out here my "perfect length, grown-out just enough" hair had turned into a "not-so-perfect" whitey fro. I don't really care how I look in the field, but when I caught a glimpse of myself in the pink plastic mirror that hangs on the exterior of the latrine the only words that came to mind were "80's mom do from hell." So, taking matters into my own, ill-advised hands I borrowed Sean's beard trimmers and asked Haley to buzz a bit off on the longest setting. To make a boring and uneventful bit short, I was left with a strip diagonally across my head of un-trimmed hair. To remedy the error, Haley tried clipping it from a few different angles. I don't know how, but when I went back to the latrine mirror to check out the cut I discovered, in front of a badly uneven head of hair, a little row of what can only be described as fuzz, too short to qualify as hair. Haley got the finger and I got another team member to try to fix the mistake. Belinda, luckily, is actually a hairdresser and helped me into a cut that did not suggest an unfortunate lawn mower incident. No words can characterize my relief at not having to face the ridicule that would undoubtedly drench me at home, courtesy of my friends.