I did a low budget street manicure and got injured🥵😭. Diary Game (20/12/22).

My father always told me to keep my nails clean. He said ‘girls like boys with pretty nails’. I have always tried my best to live up to his words, but keeping clean nails is not as simple as it may seem especially not when when you use your bare hands to almost everything. If I am not going to lie to you, keeping clean finger nails in this country is a luxury.

Yesterday (20/12/22) after an ugly encounter with one annoying customer at The doormats store, I lost all the joy in my heart. This woman (annoying customer) scatted every single doormat in my shop and went away without buying anything, she even said some foul words to my doormats. It’s not her fault, it’s the person who said “a customer is always right” that I blame. Because even a mad person can be a customer, my eyes have seen more than my hands can count. If you live in this Tamale, you’ll agree with me.

I was still trying to calm myself down when I saw aboki (the street manicure guy) passing by with that annoying sound they always make with their manicure tools. I looked at my finger nails, It was not that bad but I knew I could lose a cedi (0.11$) to make my finger nails sparkle again. I called this guy, he was on the other side of the road so he crossed over to my side. He was a young tall dark skin guy. The harmattan winds together with the angry sun in Tamale has forcefully changed his black hair to a partial brown color. But everything together, he was a nice and gritty guy.
I gave him my left hand to begin with. He did a cool job with it, the trimming of the nails was a bit deep but the cleaning and scratching off the dirt was perfect. I was happy with it but asked him not to cut very deep. He started with my right hand 🤚 and before I had realized, he had cut my finger with his tool. His knife was very sharp and he was not very careful. Blood started leaking from my finger. It was my middle finger, he dipped his hand in his bag and removed some kind of powder concoction to put on the injured finger but I stopped him immediately. His mood dropped to zero afterwards. I told him not to worry, after all it’s just a minor cut and it wasn’t intentional at all. He continued with the remaining fingers. He was more gentle and easy with the rest. He finished, collected his gh1 (0.11$) and continued his hustle.

my injured finger nail.

aboki manicure tools

When he left, I was happy with my pretty finger nails. But there was something else I couldn’t get out of my head. The cut. How many people have he injured today alone? How many of them may have got some contagious sickness in their blood? How many more people is he going to use that same tools on?

These questions were not new to me, but today I was more concerned. Maybe it’s because I was injured, or maybe not. We are all aware of the risks and dangers involved when we use the service of these “streets low budget manicure guys” they use the same tools everyday and don’t even sterilize it for once. These guys migrated from Niger 🇳🇪 to Ghana 🇬🇭 to look for greener pastures. They are not trained in any way yet all the time we trust them with our own health.

After today, whether I’ll ever use the service of an aboki manicure or not, I’m not sure. But what I’m always sure of is that I’ll always keep my nails clean for “girls like boys with clean nails”😁