Sawubona, I’m Buhle

I learned to braid on my gogo’s stoep in Umlazi, doing my cousins’ hair before school. Twelve years later I still part every section by hand and I still don’t rush.

The studio is the front room of my house in Durban North: one chair, a big window, plants everywhere. You get the whole morning, or the whole day, and nobody else in the chair.