07 Jul 2015

While some people choose to learn the art of business through academia, some inherit the skills as part of the family’s culture as is the case with Ms Tendai Mbakile from Sebina who sells African, (Tswana) food at the Francistown market.
Going down memory lane in a recent interview, Mbakile noted that this family business started even before she did her Standard One.

She highlighted that life was not kind to her parents economically but they did not fold their arms as they had dependents to feed.
They started selling traditional food stuff as a means of generating income in order to sustain themselves and their family.
Ms Mbakile noted that she started off as a hawker walking the streets of Francistown selling corn.

The practice of street hawking, she noted, is synonymous with the Bazezuru, however, Mbakile defied the odds and became one of the few people amongst the Bakalanga who adopted their ways during her early days in business.
Currently, she operates a traditional food court at the Francistown market where she is renting the place from the Francistown City Council.


The kind of traditional dishes she sells include ditloo, manoko, dinawa, morogo wa dinawa, rothwe, delele, bopi jwa manoko, mmidi, mophane worms, sugar beans, whole wheat and her prices range from as low a P5 to P80.


The reason why she specialises in selling traditional food instead of modern dishes, she said, is because ever since modernization, Batswana have moved away from traditional food.


Her effort, she explained, was an attempt to bring back the pride and appreciation for local traditional dishes. 
Moreover, she said there is relatively low competition and traditional food is far much healthier than modern day food that has been processed and enhanced using chemicals.


Like any other business, she encounters challenges. “My major concern is that beans are more prone to being attacked by pests and I sometimes run at a loss if I fail to respond promptly through the use of pesticides, ’she said.
Moreover, due to Botswana’s unreliable rainfall, she experiences bad harvest in other years, hence running at a loss.


She added that it pains her that the city council threatens to close down the market and expressed her concern as to how she is expected to survive when her only economic livelihood is taken away from her.

“What is a town without a market anyway,” she asked emphatically.
In an attempt to overcome her obstacles, after seeking advice from Botswana Agricultural Marketing Board on how to tackle pests, she ensures that she buys good quality chemicals that do not in any way affect the quality of food or are harmful for human consumption.


MsMbakile said that because a customer is always right, she listens to her clients and when the customer is happy, she is happy too.  Addressing the issue of closure of the market, she expressed  hope that the council reconsiders and have an in-depth understanding that its closure will affect the lives of Batswana gravely.


On a much lighter note, she expressed that what delights her most is that after her clients harvest from their fields, they sometimes bring her a bag of what they harvested as means of expressing their gratitude for her delicious food. 
She also took the opportunity to thank Marang Hotel, Tati River Lodge and Adansonia Hotel as they too have been supportive of her business.
 ENDS