Chronicle Editor
Raymond Jaravaza, Showbiz Correspondent
NORMA Phiri felt like her world was crumbling.
The untimely death of her boss due to Covid-19 complications didn’t just come as a complete shock but hit closer to home as if she had lost a parent or a sibling.
Beyond the pain of losing someone she had worked with for three years; one certain fact was that she would be losing her job as well.
All this happened at the heart of the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 when the country was battling a surge in cases, punctuated by cold winter days that appeared to spread the virus at an alarming rate.
Zimbabweans were still divided between accepting the reality that coronavirus had hit home, hospital beds were running out and mortuaries recording more bodies or simply trying to wish away the pandemic as a myth that ‘targeted’ affluent parts of the world.
“I had worked for my former boss for about three years since he started a small import business that brought cosmetics, hair extensions, and assorted beauty products into the country from China and Dubai for distribution to local shops.
“Being a small company, he just needed two employees to help run the office and service clients so it was really a small business in terms of the number of employees so we become a close family. One day in June 2020, he was taken ill with breathing difficulties and a few days later, he passed away at Mater Dei Hospital.
“Everything changed from that day and for the first time in three years, I found myself wondering where my next pay cheque would come from,” Phiri told Saturday Leisure.
Because her late employer was the only one who knew the intricacies of the import business, it was a no brainer that the business would collapse and she would be joining the unemployment wagon unless she hastily came up with a plan to take care of her five-year-old son.
“The Bulawayo marketplace had just been demolished to stop the spread of the virus by decongesting the city centre and it dawned on me that people still needed fresh vegetables and fruits in their respective suburbs.
“Using my late father’s Mazda 323, which honestly was not in great condition, but could get me from point A to point B, I started off by buying tomatoes and cabbages from a farm in the Rangemore area for resale in Bellevue,” said Phiri.
Despite being a total climb-down from an air-conditioned office job to selling vegetables in the open, the satisfying feeling of making enough money to put food on the table for her son and mother was all Phiri needed to push her ‘hustle’.
“At first, waking up at 3am to drive to various farms around Bulawayo was very difficult because I wasn’t used to waking up that early, but I had to in order to get the freshest farm produce before other buyers did.
“I would say I started off making about US$18 in profit per day and steadily it increased to about US$40 because I now know exactly what is in demand at any given time and my clientele base is growing,” she added.
Hustling knows no boundaries and Nono Sibanda is doing her bit in keeping the struggle for survival in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, a success story that will inspire other women to join the ‘hustlers club’.
Born in Zimbabwe, Sibanda has been running her small business in the economic hub of South Africa — Johannesburg — and says hustling is all the same no matter which part of the world one lives in.
“The Covid-19 pandemic period has been the most difficult time that my business has ever faced. It’s difficult to keep up the momentum when lockdowns are imposed every now and then so it’s really been difficult to make ends meet in the last year.
“I’m a single mother of two with extra responsibilities such as school fees and household bills so I have to work as twice as hard to make my business a success,” said Sibanda.
The 35-year-old sells health and fitness products as well as detergents. Due to job losses being experienced in the neighbouring country, Sibanda has been seeing her clientele base shrinking at an alarming rate.
“People are losing jobs here (South Africa), the situation is not looking good and that (job losses) has an impact on our hustle because our clients tend to spend their money on essentials such as food and have little left for the kind of products that I sell,” she said.
A few days ago, the country woke up to pictures of actress and radio personality Tinopona “Tin-Tin” Katsande standing next to a car, with a baby on her back, selling eggs somewhere in the streets of Harare. The picture instantly became fodder for crude jokes from some social media users.
But the malice quickly lost traction with people heaping praise on Tin Tin for stepping out of her comfort zone to push her ‘hustle’.
“I’m really excited that I’m trending on social media with people showing me some love. I’m a mother of two and I am simply hustling like any other person during such trying times. When the picture of me selling the eggs from a car boot went viral on social media, I think the writer wanted to paint a bad picture that I’ve fallen on hard times, but it turned out that the publication really marketed my hustle,” she told the media.
The internet went into overdrive with people from all walks all life, politicians, business people, socialites, musicians and ordinary citizens, making orders for Tin Tin’s eggs.
In Bulawayo, Nobuhle Mlilo is inspired.
“My mother sells second hand clothes along Sixth Avenue and I’m proud of my old lady’s hustle. Unlike Tin Tin, she doesn’t need social media to push her hustle, but just waking up and getting her second-hand clothes into the city centre with her ever-warm smile at every prospective customer is enough for her hustle to put food on the table,” said Mlilo.
South African writer Anthony Lannarino describes hustle as the ability to work hard, smart and with a sense of urgency.
“The word hustle means that you work hard. It means that you work hard every single day. It means you do the things other people won’t do and you do them with a sense of joy and purpose because you love it. It means working smarter,” says Lannarino.
Hustling doesn’t mean trying to find shortcuts because you don’t want to do the hard stuff. — @RaymondJaravaza
Online Reporter