Jennifer Rodriguez, 27, of Meriden, receives a “keratina,” which in Spanish means a straightening of her hair, through Romy Norwood. Rodriguez is a full-time beautician who helps at Romy’s beauty salon. To the left under the hair dryer is Melissa Hernandez of Middletown, the mother of Romy, Yolanda Sosa, Rodriguez and Norwood. PHOTO BY © PATRICK RAYCRAFT 2022
Yolanda Sosa, 73, prepares a Dominican-style lunch at the Romy good looks salon in Meriden. Sosa divides his time between Connecticut and his home in the Dominican Republic. PHOTO BY © PATRICK RAYCRAFT 2022
During a break on a hot summer day, Yolanda Sosa washes her daughter Romy Norwood’s hair at the Romy good looks salon in Meriden. PHOTO BY © PATRICK RAYCRAFT 2022
On a Friday morning, the aroma of rice and beans floats through a cloud of lacquer at Romy’s beauty salon in Meriden. Merengue music calms the senses. Customers exchange jokes in Spanish while Romy Norwood gives everyone a small bowl of “arroz y habichuela,” the Dominican staple of rice and beans. Later that day, Norwood repeats the courtesy with small cups of strong, “cafecito” coffee, ready through his mother, Yolanda Sosa, in the kitchenette at the back of the store. Unlike Norwood and his mother, peak consumers don’t wear masks.
Neither Norwood nor anyone in his immediate family has been infected with COVID-19. Norwood, 46, and her husband, Jeffrey Norwood, 65, live in Cheshire with their children Jennifer, 14, and Ramon, 12, and their dog. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Norwood says, they have been vigilant about mask wearing, social distancing, and testing and vaccinations. Two beloved aunts succumbed to COVID in the Dominican Republic, where Norwood grew up, but everyone else in her family circle stayed healthy, adding Sosa, 73, who divides her time between Norwood’s home in Cheshire and her own home in the Dominican Republic.
By all accounts, Norwood and his circle of relatives appear to have dodged the most serious fitness consequences of COVID. This is especially smart news for the Norwoods, as Black and Hispanic families have been disproportionately affected by the virus in terms of physical fitness and as small business owners. According to a report from the U. S. Small Business Association, the total number of other self-employed and managing individuals decreased by 20. 2% between April 2019 and April 2020. Hispanics saw a larger decline, at 26%. The largest declines occurred among Asians and Blacks, at 37. 1% for Asians and 37. 6% for Blacks.
Norwood’s good-looking salon was closed for nearly six months because of the pandemic. “I didn’t have a contingency plan,” Norwood says in Spanish. Some consumers have died of COVID and others simply haven’t returned to their living room. decision to forgo a federal PPP loan and incur credit card debt. She estimates that her company has returned to 75% of its pre-pandemic performance.
“Somehow, COVID will have you,” Norwood says of the intellectual fatigue his circle of family members has experienced. She says hypervigilance, anxiety and worry crept in, replacing many of the satisfied emotions they had when they moved to Connecticut. The illness had an emotional has an effect on the circle of relatives. They have not become inflamed but are very affected by COVID.
In 2006, while driving quietly through Meriden, Norwood was drawn to the good looks and peace of mind of the city. There were blacks and browns like her and she Jeffrey. Se spoke Spanish in the cellars. At the time, the couple lived and painted in West Haven after meeting in the Bronx. Norwood also liked that Meriden was far enough away from West Haven not to paint at direct festivals with her former beauty salon employer. So she and Jeffrey, a doctor at West Haven VA Medical Center, moved to Meriden and opened the Romy beauty salon on West Main Street. They lived in the apartment upstairs. In 2007, they married in Jamao al Norte, Norwood’s hometown in the fertile Cibao region of the Dominican Republic.
In Meriden, Norwood established an unwavering clientele and the couple began their circle of relatives. Good business. They have become parishioners of St. Brown Catholic Church. Rose in Lima, where today Norwood is minister of the Eucharist and president of the parish council. As Jennifer and Ramon grew older, the circle of relatives began to take vacations two or three times a year, in the Bahamas, Mexico, Italy, Punta Cana. They made cruises.
In March 2020, the Norwoods flew to the Turks and Caicos Islands to take refuge from the global pandemic. Looking over their shoulder at the flight from Bradley International Airport, they learned they were the only passengers on the plane, Norwood says. When they arrived in Providenciales, Norwood recalls, tourists were rushing off the island. The last flight to the United States departed shortly after his arrival. They first embraced the confinement in their hotel room, thinking they would resist the hype and return the house to normal.
All flights were then grounded in the Turks and Caicos Islands. A curfew was imposed. They were allowed to faint for an hour a day. Food from the local supermarket was rationed. Food has temporarily become a scarce resource. Leftovers, Norwood says, have become the dreaded meal of the day. They were trapped, abandoned on a tropical island and were not even allowed to swim.
The hotel manager then asked Jeffrey Norwood for $10,000 a week to stay in his room beyond his initial reservation. So, they discovered an online rental, bought bedding, and got rid of the space of cockroaches. It was a disaster, says Norwood below.
Their only contact in the open air is Zeus, a flea-infested watchdog.
At first, the circle of relatives had little to do with the spotted pit bull-Dalmatian mixture. They kept their distance. ” Could I transmit the virus?” Norwood remembers thinking back then, given the widespread uncertainty about COVID. Zeus was hungry and thirsty Scratching the door of his house at night. Later, they would inform them that he had been whipped with sticks and left out during hurricanes.
Then one day, Zeus joined the circle of family members on a one-hour walk outside. When a passing vehicle scratched and hurt him and he started barking, Norwood recalls, they let him into space so he wouldn’t hear it and help him. Cure. Thus began the procedure of adopting Zeus.
The Norwoods spent a month on the island before Jeffrey rented a personal plane to send his circle of relatives to Connecticut. A month later, Jeffrey went to Miami, picked up Zeus, and returned to Cheshire.
“I, Zeus, am an angel,” Norwood says, with bright eyes, as he recounts how the misadventure of the Turks and Caicos Islands represents the most productive and worst of his pandemic experiences. “God sent him to take care of us and protect us,” he says. Today, he says, “Zeus is the king of the house. He has 3 beds, all the food he wants,” adding that he loves his mom.
COVID has affected Norwood’s circle of relatives in some way.
“We’re lifeless,” Norwood says in Spanish as he pauses among consumers in his salon. No more circle of relatives filming nights with popcorn, he says. There is no holiday. No romantic getaways. There are no games. It’s not fun.
There have been a few weekends in New Hampshire, where they rent a house but take the food and the receiver, Norwood says. Children don’t need to return to New Hampshire, he says, because they’re not allowed to leave the house. “I’m with COVID so far,” says Norwood. No need to hear anything else about COVID. “
She says her mom’s help at home and in the living room was unconditional. After the debacle in the Turks and Caicos Islands, Norwood described how he returned from the room, undressed in a separate domain and showered. His mom’s Dominican kitchen was waiting for him. “My mom is everything to me,” she says.
Her husband is afraid of contracting COVID. Norwood says her husband says nothing about what happened as a frontline doctor. Wear two masks and glasses or a shield, whether you have gas or attend a Mets game, Norwood says. In 2018, the couple moved to Cheshire for their schools. When they returned to school, Jennifer and Ramon were late. Norwood says Jennifer has become less sociable and more homely. Avoid crowds for fear of being exposed to the virus. your hair and body shape. Their young people have become anxious, Norwood says.
During the outbreak of infections last December, Norwood kept Ramon home until late February, when he turned 12 and was eligible for the adult vaccine. She felt that the higher dose would be more protective and valued the wait. However, school officials harassed Norwood for Ramon’s absence. She suspects that online training is intentionally inferior when it comes to persuading parents to get their children back to school.
“I’m scared because COVID is unpredictable,” Norwood says in Spanish. “I’m scared because COVID is unpredictable. ” He may not do it or send him to the hospital, she says. He fears for his children and his elderly mother. Despite all their precautions, consumers still sneeze while touching their hair, face and shoulders, he says. Many called later to tell him they had tested positive. Jeffrey prefers that she close the room and not work, she says.
“They gave me the job,” Jeannette Solano, 53, of Meriden, a longtime layover, says of how to wash, dye and beautify her hair in Norwood on a recent Saturday afternoon. the routine of the pandemic. ” I was very sad,” he says in Spanish, “I was very sad” about the break from the Norwood exhibition in 2020. Describing Norwood as friendly, humble and funny, he says he stops once a month. “Romy does it well,” she says, explaining how a hairdresser recently broke her hair on a layover at her home in the Dominican Republic. Solano won two doses of the Moderna vaccine, he says.
During an afternoon break in the living room, the air conditioning stops. Norwood sits down and asks Sosa to wash her hair. A few minutes later, Norwood gets back on his feet. it’s quiet. Norwood sits under a hair dryer, lifts his bare feet and closes his eyes for 20 minutes. “I want that,” she says.
In July, Norwood, his children and his mother plan to spend 3 weeks of vacation in their “Dominican village”, Jamao to the North. Jeffrey is rarely very lively, she says. I miss my life before COVID. I miss freedom. The river, the food, the people, the beach,” Norwood explains in a break between customers. “I can’t wait. “