Donna's Salon Utopia

Christen Bennett, in her early 30s, is a family friend of Gifty Serbeh-Dunn, owner of the Shea Butter Market company. For a time while in Ottawa, Serbeh-Dunn lived with Bennett’s family. Out of friendship and a deep belief in shea butter, Bennett tries to promote the Shea Butter Market products in the Ottawa region. “My mother’s done a lot of work in Ghana and throughout our childhood she always brought back raw shea butter for us to use,” says Bennett. “This is what Gifty has done with raw shea butter and all of the colours. I think it’s fantastic and makes it more appealing to everyone else. What Gifty has done with shea butter is great stuff. Different textures, creams, lip balms, it’s just a wonderful product and makes it more versatile for me especially. It’s healthy and also very natural. There should be a bigger demand for products like that with less process.” The lip balms are Bennett’s favourite products. She finds them moisturizing and the flavours are “fantastic.” For more ...

A 71-year-old woman in British Columbia (who preferred not be named) loves the Shea Butter Market products that Gifty Serbeh-Dunn owns. “I love them,” she says. “I’ve used pretty well everything that she’s had out. First of all I’ve used her shea butter and the moisturizing cream and the body lotion and the foot cream.” Before the BC woman tried the Shea Butter Market products, she had been having trouble with cosmetics. Her esthetician recommended extremely expensive products and she has found Shea Butter Market, far more affordable, as well as something that suits her sensitive skin when she uses the products that do not have a scent. “I will be 72, and like Gifty, I have nice smooth skin. I have no wrinkles. It’s genetics. It’s not primarily to do with shea butter, but it’s been working for me.” The BC woman’s favourite product is the natural shea butter that she also buys for other people. She appreciates that Serbeh-Dunn’s business also gives back to the women in Ghana who produce...

I CALLED GIFTY SERBEH-DUNN AS SHE WAS FEEDING HER CAT. HER BOYS WALKED BY THE CAT WITHOUT FEEDING HER. HER BIG BOY IS HER HUSBAND WAYNE DUNN WHO HAS A BUSINESS DEGREE FROM STANFORD. HER SMALL 7-YEAR-OLD BOY IS HER SON KABORÉ. SERBEH-DUNN HAS MANY THINGS TO DO SUCH AS FEEDING HER CAT AND RUNNING A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS SHEA BUTTER MARKET. “SHEA BUTTER MARKET WAS INSPIRED BY THE WOMEN IN MY COMMUNITY AND ENCOURAGED BY MY HUSBAND,” SAYS SERBEH-DUNN. WHEN SHE WOULD TRAVEL TO HER HOMELAND GHANA, SHE WOULD GET SOME SHEA BUTTER AND BRING IT BACK TO CANADA. ANOTHER TIME SHE WENT HOME SHE ASKED PEOPLE THERE WHAT THEY WANTED HER TO BRING BACK FROM CANADA AND THEY SAID – “NOTHING, WE JUST WANT TO WORK.” HER HUSBAND IS INVOLVED IN CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY WORK. SHE RAN THE IDEA BY HER HUSBAND TO START A BUSINESS WITH SHEA BUTTER FROM THE WOMEN SHE KNEW IN GHANA TO HELP THEM TO GET WORK. MAINLY HER FOCUS WAS ON WHOLESALE ACCOUNTS. SHE CONNECTED WITH GREG SULLIVAN WHO LIVED WITH HER FAMILY 30 Y...

Today I will be going to Seneca College to teach. I am looking forward to a great day. Yesterday I was at Trebas Institute and I administered a test to the students. I think I get as nervous about those tests as some of the students do at times. Everything seemed to go well. I also played a podcast about Internet marketing that was done by a man named James Scramko. He has a website called: www.askjamesschramko.com . You should check that out for any of your online marketing questions. The guy is good. Well...that is it for today. I am keeping this short because I am still working on Abilene's Child. It is a fascinating story and I know it will really do well.

Yesterday I got into an argument with one of my neighbours. This is definitely the kind of thing that would make for interesting conversation in a salon. He called me a "nut bar," "manic depressive," and all kinds of other names. Plus he said "I hope you're taking your medication." Surprisingly....I was not really taking complete offense to these names and comments. There are a lot of great things about being bipolar, which I am. And yes, for the record, I do take my medication. The saddest part of the encounter is that someone so ignorant could think that you could belittle someone else by calling them names based on a condition to which they have no other control but to manage it well, as I have been. It is really sad that in this millennium people think this way. Well...let God bring light and understanding into the mind of this tortured, ignorant and confused soul that is my neighbour. I have slain my demons and I "ain't gonna let nothing ...

Yesterday I had a great day. I met with someone about writing book and I have been looking into doing French language teaching. As well, I received my schedule for the fall semester from one of the schools I teach at. I'm still working on Abilene's Child/Tormented Hope. One of my interns for Donna Magazine wrote an excellent short story called Bicycle Time. She is really a good writer and I am so happy to have her on board. As well, I have been working with a fellow collaborator, Brikena Ribaj, a PhD graduate who also teaches and knows writing and the Internet well. She even has podcasts of hers up on iTunes. She has been sharing her material with me on her blog that I have been reposting on my magazine. Things are going well. I am hoping that I can have another podcast up today on my podcast site: http: //kakonged.podomatic.com . Things are going really well.

Many, many, many years ago in my youth I used to be a model. At one point I got some pictures done by a photographer named Steve Chung and had a stylist named Ian Hylton. The magical thing about one of the photographs that I am showing here is that a copy was given to the other man who was in the photograph. It was taken beside a ice cream truck. That man kept the picture on his ice cream truck that is mainly parked down by Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto for at least 10 years. One day I went down there, after I had been living in and out of Toronto. I went up to the truck without the hair, makeup and figure I had in my youth. I told the man there (a different man) that it was me in that picture. He did not believe me. Well...things change.