Africans do we still have Ubuntu?

FEW years ago, just before the Covid 19 lockdown. I had the pleasure of meeting up and be part of a small acting workshop group that met every Sunday afternoon at the workers museum in off Mary Fitzgerald Square down town Johannesburg. Back then, I was preparing and focusing on going full time on my art.

By then, I had done everything that I thought would please amongst others, my father who was against the idea of me becoming a full time artist and making a living out of it as my childhood dream. I had ticked all the boxes to prove not only to the public but to myself that I was educated enough to make and maintain myself through art.

Through working as a domestic worker, security guard and later print journalist. I had earned all the experiences needed to manage, budget and use my money wisely. So financial savy that, when I started my beads business, I had no car instalment as the Toyota Etios 2012 model payment was long over even before I purchased my second property.

My surburb flat allocated at the back of the fluent surbub of Melrose Arch, a five or ten minutes drive to Sandton Mall and a walking distance to Alexandra Township together with my son were the only huge responsibility I had then. I was so prepared for the future that even in my wardropethrough out the years,had special clothes for that audition job for a TV presenter/ talk show hosts or a role of a classy businesswoman on the biggest South African Soap Opera, Generation the Legacy.

I could speak at least seven South African languages then and the magazine and TV had trained me enough on what to expect. So me being with this crew on a Sunday was a step closer to my dream world.

One of the sister, I met at Melrose Arch Camphor Cream advert auditions told me about these classes which were offered for free for any inspiring actor. But the lady forgot to tell me that the person giving them was a Nigerian national.

I'm not sure if she had kept that information from me deliberately, knowing how I will act towards the information. The only part I got was that, he was the director of of Isibaya, a popular drama series that was airing on Mzansi Magic daily,it was quite big on our telies then. His name he did tell me, but out of arrogancy, I thought he was either Vhenda or xhitsonga or Pedi.

So there I was in the workers museum every Sunday amongst other inspiring actors some who had done a bit of TV work while others were still hustling to get in.

The guy was so nice. Coming to his work shops made me forget my troubles with the big Sunday national newspaper then. Lets just say, it had some attachement issues and I was just enough with being bullied for a salary. The bullying had made the passion for writing and reporting on national stories on print vanished. Instead, I was looking at the other means of telling and documenting our African stories. Coming to the acting workshop though was a therapy, it reminded me of the 90s British sitcom, Mind your language which aired on SABC1 but this was an African version of it. The Mr Brown was this Nigerian guy, with students from all over the township of Johannesburg. He spoke English, his students could hear him but others find it very hard to express themselves in the language. As a reader, you need to understand how apartheid affected especially the black men's education system in order to know and enjoy how these young actors reacted. But the nicest thing, the master was patient, no one had wrong answers in the class. Some answers were right but not for use in the current moment, they were prophetic answers. His work ethic made me forget one of my my life rule ie....Stay as far away from Nigerians as possible especially when have no back up. Sorry Nigeria but in South Africa, Nijas are notorious for many things ie abduction of girls and forcing them into prostitution. As a journalist, one of the most inhumane brutal stories ive ever done was that of a small body of a teenage girl thrown out of the fourth floor building in Central Port Elizabeth. The three Nigerian men who were well built and more masculine than her were trying to force her to take drugs. This was a high school girl from New Brighton, a member of an Apostolic church and the only child her mother had. Nor will I ever forget the humiliation, dissappointment and betrayal of Nolubabalo "Babsie"Nobanda from Grahamstown. She was well educated, came from a well off family what she did didn't add up with her character according to what I picked up from relatives and friends. But like all stories, there was a Nigerian man behind her betrayal. I interviewed her family soon after her arrest and dumped the SA drug mule in Thailand. Her story read like something in the movie and yes, there was a Nigerian brother played with her innocense. He didn't care of the pain, humiliation he had caused to not only the family but the community and South Africa at large. Trust was already broken even if you met a nice one there was always that...."But you are Nigerian my friend, I dont trust you" Anyway, the guy heading the workshop was generally nice had his coworkers from the drama coming in to talk to us or help him out. I remember one of the event he took us to Sandton convention centre to present our short theatre play on xenophobic, it was so nice I even twitted about it,

Khanyiswa Ndabeni🇿🇦 (@ndabenik) posted at 9:14 am on Sun, Nov 17, 2019: Nigerian artist, @iam_kcee and I were preaching the same message at the @RiseupNija an event aimed at uniting Africans and saying no to Xenophobia https://t.co/eS8nlVdJKk

I was sold to the whole Idea, with little knowledge of what the root course of the so called xenophobic attacks.

But I was all over preaching no xenophobic and even gunned an interview with NijaTV. Telling the whole continent and the world how we needed to stop the hate and start loving each other.

Lets just say, ugal was already running with the vision with no direction. But the little information from the stiries i picked up and read while doing full time print journalism. To be quite honest, it is only now when I think of it.... Were South Africans really xenophobic or were bullied by our own African brothers out of everything they had. No one dared to really listen to the voice of SA then, it is only now through drips and drabs that we seeing the real cause.

Bullies have been at it and got away with it for a long time while even the good guys were painted with the same brush. As Africans, what happened to our communal set up. Why would a fellow country men keep quiet when another is doing wrong as this affects the image of everyone from that country. Black leaders, do they stop to lead and guide their people once their outside their homestead? Im saying this because I've seen for myself that some of the incidents could have been avoided had a leader rose up and told their people to stop it.

Imagine our mobile shop at your door step

Imagine our mobile shop at your door step.. Just imagine making extra money

The chocker and the big necklace are from the Maasai tribe in Kenya

One of the thrills of being a hawker-A person who travels about selling goods, typically advertising them by shouting -I mostly shout through social media-facebook, twitter, instagram and now working on ways to venture onto the  video sharing platform You Tube and horn my arrival in the arts and craft market- is that, you get to interact with your customers at a personal level.
They are able to share with you their ideas of how they would like their piece of traditional, western items be made. With custom made products, my customers have the  freedom to design their  piece, choose size, color and  length. Of course the higher the demand of work spent on an item, the higher the price of that particular items. The other expensive staff in my shop currently is the Maasai jewellery. These are originally made in Kenya apart from their artistic beauty that makes them worth the price, they travel from far to get to us in fact according to Google  the distance between South Africa and Kenya is about 4816km and 67 hours drives that is about 2 and half day on the road.

An invite from MTN Head Office staff in Johannesburg, South Africa

With this size of the business, you celebrate and cherish the milestones that comes with it and grow as it grows. One of those special moments to me was honoring an invite to come and set up my table for  MTN's international guest.
My friend shared a bit about why I would be helping her and the team if I came to with my shop to their offices. I remember, they booked a boardroom table for display and in minutes we had people surrounding the tables and looking excitedly at the items we had brought. There in my first visit, I notice some of the people who were keen to buy did not have cash on them. Going to the ATM would chow a lot of time for them as they were also pressed against time.  But  I noted the lack and  need to have a speed machine so that people can just swipe products they want. It took me months before I could finally invest in a speed point and so happy that things will now be easier for both my customer and me.

This speedpoint machine will make all the difference in my business.
But I am happy that I have finally made the decision. It is hard to ignore that esistand siyakhula. Ewe sifundile lol!. With this machine  the mobile shop- a door to door service which we offer our clients who are based in Johannesburg central and northern clients when they buy over the price of R1000- will also function smoothly. This area and servicing cooperates are still need to grow, so far we have had MTN and Mango Airlines staff booking us to sell. 

One of the international visitors at the MTN headoffice. She was amongst a group that attended training in the company

To book the Mobile shop is easy and it has financial benefits too. Lets say you and your friends or colleague went through our catalogue and liked what you saw. You can total the amount of your item together, if the sales are R1000, the person who book us will get 10% of that money back. Should your colleagues spend more than the initial order of R1000, you still get the 10% of the total sales made that hour or two. Soon after we total the money made through your efforts, we give you 10% of it back. So if lets say, our sales are R5000 in total. You will get R500 cash back. 

MTN staff trying a dramatic piece

Please note, one of the reasons we ask for the order to be at least R1000, is for us to be able to cover amongst other things, petrol and pay our casual workers who are only called when we need assistance.

This Wakanda Godess piece has been a hit.

The other way of making money through us, is when you buy our items for resale in other towns your own area. I'm sure by now  you have noticed that most of our items are much cheaper that the prices in the market already. Please note the quality of all the items is of high standard. We can even claim that we meets the international standards when it comes to our products. But our prices are still lower. One of the reasons for this is that we also cater for the people-majority women- who by in bulk from us and resale in their areas. Their buying price is much lower than a walk in customer. 

This piece was won in Nigeria recently, again another MTN staff

If you also want to start this, it is easy, tell us in advance the items you need. Give us a few days to make and we will post them to you using,  Pick n Pay Aramx, Post Office and even the bus services. We still making inquiry on transporting our goods out of South Africa as we have had inquiries as far as Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe about shipping.

Mango airline staff, trying our Ndebele neck piece

The cooperate gigs normally last for less than  one hour most.

A MTN staff with our bags

Mango Airline staff trying to choose from the variety of jewellery we had for them.


To book our mobile shop or buy in bulk for resale please call us on 0763607744
follow us on twitter on ndabenik
facebook Ndabeni Creatives
Instagram Khanyiswa2

If likes were converted to money, SAs hustlers would be rich

Me and my brother, Xolani Ndabeni off to sell at MTN head office

I would be lying to you if I say I started my businesses because I felt the need to solve something.

To be quite honest, initially I crafted for fun and they joy of  helping  my friend, Cynthia who had a stall  in town then. 

I became a partner when I could see she needed financial help with her business. At first, I would borrow her money needed and she would pay it back with interest of course. This went on for two years. Yes I played with the idea of starting a business whilst employed as a full time journalist, but upon consulting and doing research on my own. It was rather a bad idea to start a business and not be there physically to run it.

But this crave was fulfilled when I was bullied at work and left with no option but to resign.

At the time, I had many things I wanted to do, like write my book and other South African stories. But I knew I wasn't well equiped  for those project yet. Art and Craft or rather beading for me at the time was going to provide money for the basics, ie food everyday, my child's school fees etc. I felt the  company I had worked for had  wronged me and I needed to challenge it using other means as my voice within the company was not heard.

 But I didn't want to starve while doing that, I wanted my two-year-old  to continue getting all the things he was now used to. I didn't want him to suffer because all of sudden grew some balls. No! It wasn't going to happen.

So I started the journey of being a hustler, it was and still is not an easy road to travel.

 On social media, hustlers like myself portray an image that everything is good, we even posts messages of encouragement on our timeline and our followers get so inspired and motivated they treat us like their idols. Little do they know that we are suffering in silent. 

Our products are of the highest quality you can find hence we count thousands of likes and attract followers. But  dololo money coming in. Majority of South Africans will never support us. You get belittling remarks from your fellow white South Africans in the market. While your own black people would rather buy a Chinese imitation at a higher price than to buy your product.

This is a struggle that is probably behind the mental breakdown of Sbu, the young entreprenuer behind the brand a men's socks brand, Skinnysbusocks.

  Like many, he probably thought he had ticked all the correct boxes for his dream to fly. Maybe in his township and around the people he grew up with, he was a role model. Probably had the media eating from the palm of his hands with his mind blowing idea for these socks. But what happens when the sales do not stream in like the hype created when it started? What if we fail in our endeavors? After all we are humans, yes we want to support the vision of creating more employment in the country. Hustlers do not want to be part of the unemployment stats. To some like me, you opt for business for survival during the tough times. With our background, we take the leap of faith even when we are not financially schooled on how to run it. Now I'm not saying that was a case with the owner of Skinny Sbu Socks. To be quite, I know little about him except for the information shared with me during The Hook Up Dinner (THUD) session in Maboneng yesterday.

But this left me wondering, if Skinny Sbu Socks were this high quality( I bought myself two pairs) why was he struggling? Surely there was a market and he has done his part researching his idea before spending thousands in it.

Skinny Sbu, like all the other hustlers in South Africa needed the support from of his people, from his family, church, area of the township he lived in and South Africa as a whole.

We need an aggresive way of telling people that we are here, if you buy from a South African brand you creating a job for another South African. You contributing to the growth of the economy. We need to go to churches, clubs and everywhere that there's gathering and preach the gospel of buying locally produced goods.

I for one do not know where this hustle will take me, but I spread the message where ever I go.

PS CATCH US ON MAPONYA PRECINCT MARKET THIS SUNDAY AT VW SOWETO GROUNDS