Flat Kathy before the Shavathon
The 10th annual CANSA Shavathon took place on Saturday, the 2nd of March 2013. I had arranged to meet our friends L, V and Little N at Canal Walk, for moral and emotional support, as we had resolved to have our heads shaved. Flat Kathy was keen to come along too. (She has written about her experience on her blog)
The shavathon is a fundraising event for the Cancer Association of South Africa, at which people can have their heads shaved, or sprayed in colourful vegetable dyes for a donation of R50; if they don’t want to do either of those, but still show their support for CANSA, then they can pay a bail-out fee, also of R50. The event is always held at shopping centres across the countries at the start of March, although businesses can also organise their own shavathons in the week or two leading up to the main event.
Richard and I had our heads shaved during the 2009 Shavathon, as well as during the 2011 Shavathon, but missed last year’s event because we were travelling in America at the time. I was determined not to miss this year too.
The two of us have shaved our heads!
After L and I had had our heads shaved, we made our way to the Seattle Coffee Company’s coffee shop inside Exclus1ve Books, for coffee and tea, a muffin and a cupcake. As we were relaxing and chatting, V suddenly declared that he wanted to shave his head too! Much to all our surprise, when Flat Kathy saw how great it looked, and that it didn’t hurt at all, she insisted that she wanted us to cut her hair too.
Flat Kathy sports a colourful new wig
The poor dear got a bit of a fright, when she saw her reflection in a shop window afterwards. To be honest, I don’t think she had anticipated just how naked she would look without her hair! Oh dear…
She looked so distraught and tearful, that I gave her a biiig hug, reassuring her that she was still Flat Kathy:
“You’ll always be Flat Kathy, with hair, or without it. Who you are on the inside isn’t defined by the length or shape or colour of your hair. It hasn’t changed your personality, or taken away your lovely smile, or the mischievous twinkle in your eyes, or your enthusiasm for exploring the world.”
We were all so relieved when she cheered up again and started to laugh and giggle with Little N once more! I felt sooo proud of her.
Grains of Sand 
I like to get my head shaved – and if there was a campaign like this here I would love to join this like you, it’s a fine idea to collecting funds this way……
Oh, you would join us too? That’s great, Truels! I wonder how much money they collected with this event – I don’t know if the final figures are available yet, as they aren’t reflected on the Shavathon website.
You tell F.K. that her hair will grow back quickly. What a terrific thing you did to raise awareness in support of cancer fund raising. Did you see my post about when I got MY head shaved ? http://crittersnus.blogspot.ca/2011/07/what-happens-when-retiree-gets-bored.html
Wow! That looks stunning! Clearly, very low maintenance. The only downsides are that, when it is hot, you can really feel the sun baking on your head, and when it is cold and wet, you really feel the cold! We’re having a very rainy day in Cape Town today, though the weatherman has predicted 36 degrees on Monday again! So quite a scorcher coming up! All this up-and-down with the temperatures in the recent weeks has given me a rather horrid cold. 😦