Stella Ngozi Hill was settled and happy in Nigeria.
As secretary to a chief bank inspector, she earned a good salary and enjoyed a secure home life, but there was one thing missing: Hill wanted to be in love.
Now she jokes about how you can never predict what will happen when you say a prayer, and for her, the prayer answered turned her life upside down.
"I wasn't married before, I was praying for a husband," said Hill, now a widow living in Guelph where she works a couple of part-time jobs and runs Fashion Extraordinaire, coordinating fashion shows of traditional Nigerian clothing for cultural events.
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Hill had been to Canada in 2004, visiting a cousin in Whitby. Two years later she decided to experience Canada at Christmas, with all the snow and holiday spirit.
Around the time, Hill had been registered with an online dating site but her heart really wasn't it. When a message popped into her in box, she usually hit 'delete,' except for this one day, just before she was about to embark on her second journey to Canada.
"I opened one, I just felt it was meant to be," she said. Yet there was still some hesitation on her part. "After awhile I responded to one of his messages, I was being polite."
That response started what became a long distance friendship and eventually marriage to David Hill, a British-born man living in Guelph.
When she came to visit her cousin Christmas 2006, it took several days before Hill felt comfortable contacting him. When they met, it was instant sparks. Her dream had come true.
"I thought about what my family would say," she said. "It was a tough decision. In my culture if the family objects, that's the end of the marriage idea." Luckily, her cousin very much approved of the match.
"I didn't want to go back to Nigeria," she said. "I decided to stay here. I could always go home again."
Hill had always been the adventurous sort, travelling to other countries on vacation, so moving to Canada wasn't too much of a stretch. The couple married in 2007, and in November 2010, her husband died from complications of a long-standing health problem.
They had been married less than four years. It wasn't enough time.
After his passing, Hill did not want to return to Nigeria and had to find creative ways of supporting herself, including part-time jobs. The idea of running a fashion show came about unexpectedly.
Hill met Jacqui Terry, founder of the annual Bring on the Sunshine event which celebrates African culture on Family Day at Forest Hill United Church in Kitchener.
"I said to her, 'Would you like an African fashion show?'" she recalled. "It just kind of came to me."
Given Hill's mother had been a fashion designer in Nigeria and her own closets were overflowing, she could easily outfit enough models for a show.
"I have tons of clothes and I like to dress up," she said.
That first show lead to a second and a third, then last year Hill organized a fashion show at the Guelph & District Multicultural Festival, inviting more than a dozen other cultural groups to model their own traditional outfits.
That show represented more than a dozen cultures, including Ukraine, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Mexico and Latin America, among others.
"It was very colourful," she enthused.
On the weekend of June 6-8, Hill will co-ordinate three separate fashion shows, two at the Multicultural Festival and one at a Waterloo event raising money for a Ugandan high school.
At fundraising events, Hill asks for volunteers from the audience who can choose their own outfits from her vast collection, including the intricately wrapped headpiece known as an akwa isi. Watching her twist and fold a single length of stiff fabric into the headpiece is remarkable, particularly when she pulls and tucks the ends then adds a sparkly pin to add drama.
The full effect of the flowing clothing in brilliant hues with the headpiece can be stunning and this is what keeps Hill coming up with new ideas for shows.
"If I see something on TV, I'll think 'I can do that' and will make a few sketches," she said.
Those sketches will be sent to Nigeria where seamstresses create the outfit and ship it back to her. She also picks up new outfits when she visits her homeland, and anyone she knows travelling to Nigeria has a standing order to pick up something new for the collection.
Several outfits in her shows are for sale, and Hill said she has been buoyed by all the positive feedback she receives from volunteer models.
"They come of their own volition to model and this is what gave me the confidence to continue."
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