The famous Raval district, in Barcelona’s old town, is the protagonist of this story. Where working-class families once shared small, cheap flats, immigrants from all over the world now give the area its character. In the neighbourhood’s narrow streets, dozens of hairdressers’ salons sit side by side. All of them serve customers from the same neighbourhood, but from separate communities with very little contact between them. Each salon is a unique sub-world, often impenetrable to members of the other communities. The owners are people who left their countries a few years ago in search of better living conditions, at a time when many Spaniards are now leaving to find them elsewhere.
