Hi I'm Jiji... (Part 2)

I figured I will start part 2 with a few pictures to show you

1. Still a natural hair bride

2. My hair before and after it was butchered(yes, before was my hair in the fro)

3. La place de Jiji Garage salon with my famous friend Tolulope Solutions

4. My amazing team in Nigeria when I was leaving.

I have been blessed with the most amazing staff possible. I kinda knew by the beginning of 2019 that at some point I was going to move to Canada. I was pregnant and had my baby in 2019 and that surely was my first test run at leaving my amazing staff to handle the salon on their own. They did pretty well for the 6'ish weeks I took off for( took off'ish; I was in the house; an earshot away from the garage salon🤣).

Fast forward to 2020, I came to Canada for 6weeks to "Soft Land". I decided I was going to only do Locs in Canada (as the President of #lazynaturals that could not be bothered with detangling loose natural hair anymore😌😀) and started my new Instagram page https://instagram.com/locsbyjiji because I wanted bragging rights to all the work on this new page, lol (my staff in Nigeria are definitely better than me in some hairstyles, yes, I am a proud teacher, lol). This was my second opportunity and I was fully removed from the salon; this time I was away, away (in Ayra Starr's Voice); 14hours by flight lol. I must commend my staff; they did exceptionally well.

By the time I was ready to relocate in May of 2021, I honestly had no plan for the Salon. It was still located at the garage of the house we were now going to move out of. I had a couple of discussions with my staff; I offered to pay each of them a lump sum and close down the salon or find placement for them at other salons or switch our business model to "Home Service" so that each of them sort of would become contractors on their own. They all came to a unanimous decision to continue to work at the salon for as long as they could. "Ma don't worry let us be here first" they said.

Enter Crystal; my amazing friend and partner in Nigeria. Crystal is a client that really loved the salon, and for selfish reasons (yes, selfish because she could not be bothered to look for another salon to do her hair at this point any more, lol) wanted the salon to keep running. We had a conversation about becoming partners while I was in Nigeria initially but I only had the conversation at the back of my mind. I did not know how it was going to work, and I had a prior experience with partnership that did not end too well so I was very hesitant.

So the Salon in Nigeria continued running at the Garage while I moved to Canada and started a new journey...

To be continued...