Yesterday was “graduation” day for my 8 and 11 year old daughters (and their much older fellow trainees) at the venue of the 2 week “Cosmetic Makeup and Gele Tying” workshop organized by the Lagos State Government.

I’m still suffering from cumulative fatigue: I’ve practically been out of circulation over the past 2.5 weeks taking them from home to the venue and STAYING with them till evening, to bring them back from Monday to Friday.

But it felt all worth it seeing them carryout their final assignments of doing makeup on the faces of the “clients” they were asked to bring along.

I took the photo below, outside the event hall about 30 minutes after the presentation ceremony had ended and item 7 (chop-chop) was ongoing.

My 2 daughters are dressed in the Ankara worn by all the other trainees.

The girl to the right is the daughter to the wonderful hairdresser lady who plaited their hairs. My 11 year old daughter did the makeup on her face as part of her final “practical”.

Then each girl had to do makeup on her own face – with no assistance from anyone. That was fun to watch – as it was a strange experience for both of them.

My (soon-to-be) 8 year old girl initially protested that she could not do it!

But she was told that was the requirement for completion. So she had to focus and do it.

What you see in the above photo is the result of her first ever attempt at applying makeup on her own face, instead of someone else’s lol

Note that they wore “Gele” during the ceremony, but which they took off right after the event – that’s indicated by the dark band along their hair lines in the other photo.

Sadly, some glitch caused most of the photos taken by the 11 year old’s Smartphone to render in relatively small 320 x 240 pixel sizes – like the 2 below!

a. The 11 year old inside the event hall

b. The 8 year old inside the taxi I hired so  we could get there on time, AFTER we discovered we’d lost my ATM card and wasted valuable time trying to find it (details in the full post to come later)!

We still do not know what went wrong.

The other photos that are larger were taken by me using my Blackberry. But I was too busy guarding their makeup kit/tools which were scattered all over the floor, as they worked, to take as many photos as I would have loved.

Luckily, the organizers hired photographers, who took several photos of them that I’m hopeful we’ll be able to get copies of for whatever price they command.

As I noted earlier, my girls were the youngest participants at the event – in which we had attendees my age – and even older!

The 8 year old in particular, got LOTS of attention from guests (and the instructors) who came to record videos of her as she worked on her own client’s face.

So many commented on the fact that she was not intimidated/was confident and actually knew what to do and how.

Compared to her older sister, however, her “makeup” work was not so well finished.

But the instructors say she’s headed in the right direction and that with practice, she’ll get much better.

When she was called out to receive her certificate from the Guest of Honour (a “Honourable” from the Lagos State Government”), the MC introduced her saying “Ah, yes, this is our youngest participant!”

That caused the audience to exclaim even more than they had when the first saw her tiny figure walking up to collect the certificate!

It was VERY important to me that she (and her sister) have THAT experience of going out to shake hands as she did, with a VIP – who bent down to speak words of encouragement to her.

When she returned, the glow in her face told me all I needed to know: She LOVED the feeling of a sense of accomplishment it had given her.

I was therefore not surprised that she eagerly continued repairing the makeup on the face of her client, who had accidentally rubbed off some of the makeup.

Her 11 year old sister was also keen to preserve the work she’d done. So much so, that when she noticed her own client trying to use a facial wipe on her cheeks, she playfully patted her hand away saying:

“Ah, don’t spoil all my hard work O!”

This post is meant to just give a few highlights. The full story – ending with my admonition on Best Practice Parenting will come later.

I have a back log of work to dig into right now, so I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get it published, but photos etc will appear in the piece I will be writing on this wonderful journey to vocational skills empowerment my girls have commenced!