My Salon Story

 

It’s been three weeks of laughter, stress and everything in between. I finally completed my three weeks intensive hair dressing training. From the first day I stepped into the salon, I knew I would certainly write about it. I even figured it would become a full-blown story, but that’s another topic entirely.

On 12^th April 2021, I started my training at Madam Mabel’s salon. The mother of 4 never wanted to have ‘girls’ join her, but due to the good relationship she had with my mum, she obliged to accept me. I was also happy that I would have concentrated training, since there wouldn’t be anyone else.

“I no want girls o, dia wahala too much”, she had said on that day, after we had ‘signed agreement’ with the money and goodies involved. Details coming later. Lol.

The first week was a wholesome experience. The aching feet and neck reminded me of the fact that it was not a child’s play. I and my madam had two home service jobs within the week, and they were really stressful. I remember the first time I stood up for 5 straight hours.

“Welcome to the standing club” madam Mabel had said to me, smiling. But there was definitely nothing about the situation that sparked any form of amusement in me. I felt my back straining, and I knew my legs were crying out for help.

The second and third weeks were more relaxing, and I had started getting accustomed to retouching, washing, and weaving customers’ hairs, although, with strict supervision by my madam. I was also into what I call my ‘dummy ministry’. There is this female dummy with hairs which is used by every salon apprentice. I practiced on it, all that I saw my madam do.

Salon gist was another wonderful aspect of the whole experience. I realized that most of madam Mabel’s customers were her friends who always carried gist alongside their unkept hairs.

I can remember vividly the gist about a girl of 13 years who reportedly ran out of her parents’ house to go stay with a man. There were speculations that she may also have joined a popular women gang in the heart of Benin city. While this particular conversation was going on between my Madam and the customer that was braiding her hair, another lady who was in the drier spoke up about children of these days being too exposed.

“Children of nowadays eh, dem don open eye finish” she started. “My husband give my 8 years old pikin phone make him commot our room go play game, na him she come dey ask her papa ‘Why are you sending me out? You want to touch my mummy?”

I burst into wild laughter in my mind! Some kids are really crazy.

There were other talks in the salon, from the gossip of a customer’s cheating husband, to their unruly landlady, and the loud-mouthed lady that kept feeding us with stories of how her father abandoned her and her siblings.

Salon mata eh, e heavy for mouth. As for me, what’s my own na? I will just focus on the hair I’m working on, or be practicing on the dummy.

Ever been in a situation where you’re told that the most lucrative handiwork for a female to learn is tailoring? Yeah right. I was in that space.

So why hairdressing???

Yours faithfully had always wanted to learn the art of hairdressing and because I was somewhat narrow minded in my earlier years, I wanted to be done with undergraduate studies first. But the summary of it all is that I finally dared. While acquiring digital skills, I also saw the need to learn an ‘offline skill’.

One thing I am taking out of this training period is that whatever you want to learn, you can learn it, as long as you’re passionate about it. I am not close to perfect in this skill yet, but the hands-on experiences I garnered will be worked on.