It's almost closing time as Kola Bankole tries his best to advise an over-enthusiastic Irish customer which clip-on hair-piece is closest to her natural colour. Kola is the Nigerian manager of Topical, a shop on Parnell Street in Dublin that deals with African-European hair and beauty products, tropical foods and African videos.
The customer is almost certain that she should go for a blonde colour though her hair is light brown. She eventually chooses the light brown hair-piece, but returns 10 minutes later to exchange it for the blonde. "She drives me crazy," Kola says and laughs. Topical was opened last September by Tokumbo Ojo, a British man of Nigerian parentage, and it has found a definite gap in today's Irish market. There are many shops like this in Britain but this is the first of its kind in Dublin, and it is evidence of how Ireland, once perceived to have a "homogenous" culture, has changed and continues to do so.
Topical fulfils a previously unrecognised role in Dublin. As far as Kola is concerned it simply provides "a place where people can get their daily needs. Some of the customers - and we're talking about people who have been here for a long time, professionals and the like - have had to rely on people outside the country coming in from abroad to get the goods they need."
Many of the food-products though perhaps exotic to Irish eyes, are in fact simple day-to-day commodities that African customers were used to as a matter of course when they were back home. They include tropical tubers such as yam and cassava, by-products such as fufu and gari, and dried vegetables such as pfumbwa which are only grown in Africa. These foods come from Africa but are imported in from Britain where some of them are packaged. Some food-products are packaged in the shop, to make them more affordable for customers in Ireland.
Topical also deals in an entirely different selection of home comforts. As you walk through the door you will see a shelf full of African video films. "The videos," Kola explains, "are mostly Nigerian films. They're English-speaking. There are also Zairean ones. Some of them are in French and some of them are in Lingala, a Zairean language." He feels the films serve an important function, as a lot of African people in Ireland have left family behind and may be lonely, and these videos help to make them feel more at home. Many Nigerian people would be more excited by Richard Mofe-Damijo, star of Nigerian film Out Of Bounds, than by his Hollywood counterparts. "There are many stars that people like to see. It's like here Al Pacino has a new movie out and people go: `I want to see the new Al Pacino movie.' It's natural."
Topical stocks a wide range of cosmetics and hair-care products designed for African-European hair and skin. In the past, black-skinned people in this country had to go to Britain to get suitable beauty products. Now there is an alternative. Not everyone who shops here is African, however.
"Curly-haired white people come looking for hair-straightener," says Kola, "and they can't find it anywhere in the shops. We also have stylists here who can give the best advice." Another line of products he finds he sells to white customers is curl-activators.
"I've sold so many of these. TCB curl-activators and curl-activators in general. They lift curls, making the hair more curly and more manageable." He maintains that there are products that are meant only for white people, but that you will find black people using them, and that you will also find that white people can use beauty products designed for black people.
"We satisfy everybody's needs. We supply beauty products to all nationalities. We do hair products, hair-extensions and the rest of it. We have people here to apply them and braid them - this is required by all nationalities, be you black, white or Asian or whatever. Everyone wants to look good."
With that, a girl comes out of the styling room at the back of the shop where she has been getting her hair plaited. "You look beautiful," Kola tells her. She beams.
A queue of people are waiting to purchase assorted African vegetables and grain; a young man is browsing through the videos; and it really looks like there's a ready-made place for the African everyday in Dublin city.
