12 Jun 2017

Nnamme Bikimane has a degree of shyness such that she hardly looks one in the eye, but her smile makes one welcome in her modest home.

Unemployed, married to a working class husband and a mother to three school going children, it means she spends most of her time alone at home and boredom often sets it.

It was because of this too much time and nothing to do that led her to develop a habit of playing around with soils, making various colour patterns in bottles until one day a good Samaritan chanced upon her.

“One Mr Tsheboyagae saw me playing around with soils and he was impressed, so he encouraged me to take my craft seriously and I heeded his advice and thanks to him, here I am today,” she said of the now small business of making decors using soils and bottles.

And that was in January this year. A few months down the line, Ms Bikimane said her pastime has started to promise good things to come.

“At the moment the profit is not that bad. On average I make around P1 300 per month and considering the few months that I have been in business, this is promising,” she said.

She said prior to taking the décor as a business, she survived on piece jobs and never had a guarantee that she would wake up the next day with a job.

She said piece jobs were stressing as employers were always stubborn when month end came.

“With this, I am stress free because I am my own boss and I know that the more effort I put into my work, the more rewards come my way,” she said with a degree of fulfillment.

Ms Bikimane said most of her customers were ordinary people who she meets as she goes around with her wares. She said she goes around carrying a few samples of her decors to show as a form of advertising, and that if someone gets interested they place an order.

She also said some lodges have also started showing interest as they use the decors in their guests’ rooms and reception, citing Cresta Hotels in Gaborone as well as Tokeys Guest Lodge and Kutse Guest House in Letlhakeng.

Ms Bikimane also said Botswana Tourism Organisation had encouraged her to register as a business so that they could be able to support her, and that she was awaiting approval of her business name from the Registrar of Companies.

Ms Bikimane noted that she never learned the practice from anybody.

“Making decors with bottles and soils is a time tested pastime that has been around for a while, and whenever I had free time I did it and perfected it along without anybody training me. I guess God just guided me,” said the devoted Zion Christian Church member.

She said her business was also good because it was environmentally friendly, adding that she collected and used bottles that would otherwise be litter.

She said the various coloured soils were collected around Letlhakeng except for the brown soil which she collected as far as Ramotswa.

For other colours that are hard to occur naturally, she mixes various soils to get what she wants.

Her decors come in various shapes and sizes, and her prices depend on the size of the bottle, with prices ranging from P20 to around P50 for ordinary mayonnaise and atchar bottles.

She, however, said her customers’ interest has started shifting from ordinary bottles to glasses of various makes such as wine glasses and transparent vases.

She said it has forced her to adjust her prices as she now has to buy the vases unlike the bottles that she collected for free.

Ms Bikimane admitted that as her business was still at its infancy, it needed more advertising but said unfortunately she has not had many platforms to sell it to the public.

She said she would welcome the opportunity to display her wares at various shows.

She has also not been in any competitions yet. “So far I have approached the Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development to enter their competitions, but they informed me that they do not have any category for my crafts.

They, however, promised to get in touch if something comes up,” she said.

Ms Bikimane also said that she has approached the Department of Gender Affairs who promised support once her company was registered, and that she would soon go for a workshop under their wing.

She said the challenges in her business was lack of transport to collect the various soils as she uses public transport, which makes it impossible to collect the soils in large quantities.

She also said she gets some of the soils from crushing rocks, which required physical ability.

“Some people have told me that there is a crusher that can make my job easier, so I am appealing to government to assist me with this as it will be handy,” she said.

Ms Bikimane said in future she would like to diversify to avoid the risk of collapse.

She also appreciated the support she gets from her family, saying that they help whenever they were available.

As a staunch Christian, Ms Bikimane hopes that one day her business would flourish, rubbing shoulders with other big players in the market in exhibitions across the country, and that as long as she stays determined and focused, she would fall on the moon if she failed to fall on the stars. ENDS