Today is December 31, and it marks the end of a calendar year; it defines a time society has agreed to mark twelve monthly periods with which age will be determined. On this day, I would, as a young boy, generally be in Soweto, Central Western Jabavu, 1037, to be exact, at my grandparent's place for a December holiday retreat and away from Pitori. For one reason or another, my granny would have asked my mom if I had come through to help her with her 'business of retailing' fruits and vegetables at Inhlanzane Station.
The routine was to wake up every morning at 05:00 and prepare tea with freshly baked cakes, eat that mini early breakfast, take out the stock, put it on a 'rented van', and be dropped at around 06:00 at the station. We would set the table; the first target of customers were men going to Inhlanzane Hostel, coming from their 'march-in-the-line' overnight work. As we had set the table, my granny would be in a mode to go to the Soweto Fresh Produce Market uphill to replenish stock. At other times, she would go to Kliptown to buy packaging plastics and other necessities that were only found in an Asiatic Bazaar in Kliptown.
As she was away, I continued packaging fruits and veggies. I would be selling to passing clients. Often seated alone, waiting for my granny to come back from the early errands associated with the success of her business. She would return around 08:00 to 09:00 with very delicious Magwenya and Garlic Polony, otherwise she would send me to Max Store OB the other side of Nhlanzane station to buy the great Max magwenya's.
As we ate and worked, we discussed life and its many challenges. She would explain to me why the tomatoes she bought at the market had to be green and thus ripen at home, why onions should not be too dry, what cabbage needed more cover leaves, and why bananas had to be green. That was the science of her business.
One of the most significant thematic discussions was always making me pay attention to the men from the hostel who were always chasing the train to go to work. She would say, I don't think you want to run to work like them; I see you not rushing to work because you would have gone to school and worked for yourself. Here I was enjoying the monopoly of being with my grandmother because I did not mind waking up with her, and she told me the life I was enjoying with her was not what she envisaged for me.
Critical of the lessons was that of patience, we would on bad days not have a single person buying for almost half a day. I would ask, when are people going to come and buy, with a giggle she would say 'they will come when they no longer have what we selling', with a boyish impatience I would ask, what if they don buy today? She would answer, we will take the tomatoes out of the plastic, package them again tomorrow, and set them up. It will be a new day, and there will be new buyers. Then, I did not see the lesson of patience, but over time, I could sit and wait until that one person came and bought. It was cyclical, and yet, over a week, the entire stock was sold out.
Being with her at the station also allowed me to meet everyone visiting her at her office. As she was in the 'boardroom', I was in reception dealing with clients. At very managed intervals, she would remind me that I still needed to go and play with other kids. At around 11:00, she would release me to go and play. As I left, she would ask how much I had got, I would say nothing, and she would tell you come here in the morning, you work, and don't pay yourself, I can't be responsible for your stupidity. In her modest way, she taught me how to have a relationship that does not destroy the business with the till. That I treasure to this day.
More specifically, on December 31, she insisted that we go to the station; even on New Year's Day, you would find us at Ko station until around 11:00. As this day goes, I remember Nhlanzane Station, my MBA incubation space. This story I will one day tell is much more elaborate.
Ke ya leboga Kokwane Bashitisang Grace Mashigo.
Comments
Post a Comment