Entrepreneurs are made they are not born that way

I would like to share my journey in starting small businesses and my many failures and the few successes I have had in the process. I remember hearing this saying over the radio from the late Mr Cephas Msipa then the Governor of the Midlands Province in Zimbabwe, “An investor is a person who sees opportunity where others do not see it”. There is also the saying “necessity is the mother of all inventions” is very key in bringing about entrepreneurs. I believe the ability to sell is also key to entrepreneurship as you will ultimately have to make money in whatever you chose to venture into. My very first selling experience was when I was in grade 7 and my mother would ask me to sell excess vegetables from her garden and I would sit with the dish outside a supermarket after school. The next year, I was part of the Boys’ Scouts and I would sell toffee sweets at Manunure High School in Kwekwe.

After my father passed on, life became difficult and by the time I wrote O’Level, my mother had ventured into small projects such as operating a tuck shop from our kitchen window, having a garden at home and raising broiler chicken. As the eldest child, I would help her in the shop and also in going to buy stock at the wholesalers and also to buy a dozen of bread almost everyday at the bakery as our customers never wanted to buy stale bread. After I wrote my O’level exams, there was a gentleman who came to rent half of our house and he opened a big tuck shop and he employed me to sell bread from a bread delivery bicycle in the township. Some of the girls thought it was not a cool job, but I was happy to earn extra money whilst I waited for my results and then start A’Level studies. I would wake up early before 6 am and go around the township ringing a bell, around 9 am when the milk guy from the state dairy company came through I would follow him again and then towards dusk I would do another round in the township. I worked there for three months. When it was time to start my A’Level studies my employer was sad to see me go and he even tried to talk me out of going for A’ Level.

After I started working, I was raising broiler chicken about 100 at a time. In 1999 when I received my 200 shares during Old Mutual demutualisation process, I sold them (now 18 years later I am not sure if it was a correct decision!). With the money from selling my shares, I was able to buy a dozen asbestos roofing sheets and then built two chicken runs at my mother’s house. I was able to increase production to about 300birds. My mother would sell chicken at home and I would slaughter chicken and bring to Harare and sell to my workmates on credit and collect the money on month-end and also to my neighbours in Avondale. When I got married in 2001 my wife also helped by selling some of the chicken to her friends. The economic crisis in Zimbabwe was beginning in the early 2000s and there was shortage of some of the basic goods. My sister was working for a wholesaler and I would buy a few goods in short supply and then take them by public transport to my cousin who had a general dealer shop in Mutoko rural areas. I started feeling the resentment from my cousin and I wondered why I should not open my own shop.

In 2001 I was still working for AIG Zimbabwe and towards year end, the company would grant us loans to buy items such as furniture and durable home appliances. After I got my cheque, I told the wholesaler to rather give me stock for the shop. I loaded my stock on the bus to our village in Murewa and opened my shop at a small centre that had been abandoned. To the south of our village, there was a commercial farm about 5km away officially called Paradise farm in Macheke. The locals always gave these farms informal names based on the physical appearance or conduct of the farmer. I remember a farm called Mandebvu (after the long beard of the farmer), Mukandabhutsu (if the farmer had a penchant of hitting workers). Paradise farm was informally known as Masvaisvai farm. Long before the government rural electrification program, it was the only place with electricity within a 25km radius. I remember in the 80s, during school holidays in the company of my cousins, we would visit the farm to pay to use the electrical grinding machine which was cheaper than the diesel grinding machines at the townships in the black communal areas. My cousins would also go with baskets full of vegetables for sale to the farm workers at the compound where farm workers lived in squalor as compared to the farmer. My favourite part of the trip would be to visit the farm store and buy refridgerated cold drinks. The storekeeper was the most unfriendly person that I had ever met, if you asked him about the prices of goods in his shop the second time he would growl at you and ask if you wanted to buy or just wanted to waste his time. During the land reform, when the farmer was taken over by communal farmers mainly from our village, I took over the farm store and ran it for more than a year. In 2003, I had to close the two shops as I failed in running that business. In the process I learnt very valuable lessons.

In January 2004, I joined Zimnat Lion Insurance company and as part of my perks, I was allocated a Mazda double cab bakkie. I decided to go back into retail business. I have spoken to many people who gives excuses that even though they have brilliant ideas they can’t get capital so they just abandon their ideas. I started renting a shop at a relatively busy business centre in Mutoko, called Janhi (The correct name was Jan) named after the last white commercial farmer farmer who left during the war of liberation in the late 70s. At first, we took mine and my wife’s salary for that month and bought stock that would last about three days. In the middle of the week, I would drive from Harare to Mutoko a round trip of about 300km and replenish the stock. After about a month with the profit that I was making, I was able to buy stock that would last me a week. It is also very important to separate your own personal money from your business money. Within a few months, I now had stock that would last me over 3 months. They say necessity is the mother of all inventions, I seemed not to make money because my Mazda B2200 petrol bakkie was a real guzzler as I would need 50litres for a distance of 300km. An idea came to my mind. Why don’t I open another shop and spread the transport costs. I drove about 20km to the Virginia commercial farming area of Macheke where the land reform had just taken place and negotiated with the local leadership for places to trade from as the communities were desperate to have shops nearby. By 2005 I had 10 general dealer shops and I was battling to manage them. My first shop when coming from Mutoko road was at Rukanda and my last shop would be at Rufaro farm about 10km from Mutare road. So mid-week after work, I would drive along Mutare road and come out on Mutoko side, get home around 3am sleep and wake-up before 7am and go to work. Most of my weekends were spent at the shops.

Proper management training is actually vital when you are running a business. As an entrepreneur you need to invest in management skills. In 2005 I had been applying to local universities to pursue an MBA degree and I was rejected many times. The universities did not consider my insurance Associate Diploma as an adequate entry requirement to their MBA programs. Towards end of 2005, I completed my Fellowship diploma (Advanced Diploma in Insurance Management) with the following subjects:- Finance & Management Accounts, Risk Management, Marketing Management, Business Environment and Fundamentals of Management. The most effective training, I did was when in 2005 I visited Open Learning Centre in Harare at that time they were enrolling for a 3 year Post Graduate programme that led to the Nottingham Trent University MBA degree. I was accepted in the program and lecturers were being held on alternating weekends. The first course that we did was on management. I had been in management for about 3 years, I had not had proper management training at this level. Our lecturer was a senior manager at Bindura Nickel Corporation, which was previously a subsidiary of Anglo American. In that class, there were managers from Zimbabwe’s corporates and also business owners. In my cohort, I had two senior managers from Econet Wireless, a regional manager from Dairiboard Zimbabwe and NGO manager etc. This course was very practical as we had to apply the material to our local situation. I also learnt a lot from the experiences of my class mates. Unfortunately I dropped out before completing the first year.

After what I learned during the management module at the Open Learning Centre, I closed 7 general dealer shops and only concentrated on 3 most profitable shop that were contributing meaningfully to my earnings. On some of the expensive stock items, farmers could only pay by barter trade. So by end of 2005, I found my self with 3 cattle that I had to sell. I took the cattle to Surrey abattoir outside Marondera and on top of the price for animals they also paid me a transport allowance per animal. I just figured out that just on the transport allowance also I could make a lot of money so I traded-in my double cab bakkie and added a lot of money and bought an 8tonne lorry. With that lorry, I ended up being hired to carry cotton during the harvest season and also carry farmers’ fresh produce throughout the year to the market in Harare. Towards end of 2005, I was allocated a Toyota double cab bakkie at work and in my experience that is the most durable vehicle I have driven.

In 2006, I was transferred to Bulawayo. When I got to Bulawayo, I looked for land to rent and I got a six acre plot in Kensington about 15km outside the city on the Beitbridge road. I cleared the bush and the fields and I started growing vegetables that I would sell in both Bulawayo and Beitbridge. In December 2006 whilst most people were enjoying their Christmas holidays, I had 600 broiler chicken that I had raised and I spent my holiday moving around Bulawayo townships selling the chicken. My main source of income was from my shops and I would drive at least once a month to buy provisions from the Chinese traders in Francistown in Botswana then drive to Musina South Africa to buy cooking oil, soap, and petroleum journey and to Johannesburg to buy solar panels, small radios and the rest of the groceries since most of the goods were now coming from South Africa as the manufacturing industry in Zimbabwe had all but collapsed. Once a month I would drive to Johannesburg from Bulawayo on Friday evening after work, the following morning I would buy stock in Crown Mines area, then that evening drive back to Harare and to Mutoko and then on Sunday evening go back to Bulawayo a round trip of almost 3000km over the weekend. I had a good manager managing my business when I was about 600kms away in Bulawayo.

In Zimbabwe due to the relatively low crime levels, people have been giving lifts to strangers long before Uber came-up with the concept. One Sunday morning, around 3am on my way to Harare and then to my shops in Macheke and Mutoko coming from Bulawayo. The previous Friday afternoon, I had driven to Francistown and then on Saturday I had driven to Musina. This day I was going to drive to drive almost 600km to my shops to deliver stock and still come back and be at work the following morning. People who know me well, knows that I really get excited when I speak about business and I like to exchange business ideas even with strangers. So on this day, the guy was dropping off in Gweru and he asked me to bring him sugar beans as there was huge demand for the crop in Bulawayo. When I got to the shop that day I saw a farmer selling four 50kg bags of sugar beans and I bought the bags. The following day when I was back in Bulawayo, I called the guy and he said he would buy from me once he had money. I started to research the market on my own and I could not believe the price they were offering. Within two weeks I had brought in 5 tonnes of sugar beans and with the earnings, I was able to buy a used Isuzu KB250 bakkie cash and managed to increase the stock in my shops. My wife warned me about putting all my eggs in one basket by investing over R70 000 stock in my shops and this fell on deaf ears. After Easter, I gathered the strength and decided to resign from work and then run my business on a full time basis. Luck was not on my side as the government unleashed a massive price control blitz and like most businesses in Zimbabwe at that time we lost a lot of money and hyper inflation got worse. We started barter trade with farmers where they would pay us in maize for the groceries and I would drive to Harare and sell the maize in Harare and get South African Rands. In August 2007, my SA work permit came out and I came to SA and within a week started working again in September 2007. I always had a challenge with accounting when I ran my business and I am happy with my stay in South Africa, I managed to complete an Accounting degree.

In summary I believe we can all be entrepreneurs. One needs to remember the following

• If you have an idea work on it and refine it as much as possible. It always important to get started and you will refine the idea as you adjust to your specific business environment
• do not be afraid of failing as we get better when we learn from our mistakes
• Excuses are not for entrepreneurs. Imagine any country going through a rough time, there are entrepreneurs there succeeding against all odds. I remember working in Zimbabwe in 2007 when we were experiencing record levels of inflation, the board would still expect you to deliver results as difficult as it was. You would not see managers coming to the meeting and giving excuses.
• Always be on the lookout for opportunities, remember necessity is the mother of all inventions
• Be prepared to work extra hours. For your venture to go anywhere you must be prepared to put in the hours. Remember any problem that arise needs your personal attention even at midnight.
• Capital is very important but it must not be an excuse. What is important is to start small if you can build on that idea, learn from your mistakes and perfect your ideas. Imagine yourself as a bank, would you honestly fund you?
• You do not need to reinvent the wheel. Skill your self about learning about your trade, entrepreneurship, selling skills, basic accounting, basic cost accounting, people management etc.
• Have mentors, now with facebook you can follow successful people and learn valuable lessons. My suggestion follow people like Vusi Thembekwayo, Strive Masiyiwa etc.
• The company that you keep can make or break your business, associate with like minded people and learn from them
• No man or woman is an island, please make use of people in your life. Run some of your ideas through people close to you. I discovered running my ideas by people that I trust helps a lot (ever wondered why in successful companies there is robust debates). I am very good at generating ideas but I leave the day to day management to my wife as she is better at that.
• Do not be scared to make decisions, you will only get better by making more decisions. As Africans one issue that holds us back in business is our beliefs. There is a Shona saying, loosely translated it goes by “whenever a person dies, there is always a witch responsible for the death” As a youngster, I stayed in police camps until I was 15 and I would get to speak to remand prisoners and even convicted prisoners when they came to clean around the police station. One thing struck me, whenever you asked one of the prisoners why they were in jail, the answer would be “they said I did this or that”. I don’t remember anyone of them owning up to say “I am here because I committed this crime”. I think one of the most liberating thing in life is to take ownership and believe in one’s power. In business and in life, we all go through ups and downs. If something bad happens, look the problem in the eye and try to rise up, it is dis-empowering to start to think that so and so has bewitched you. I believe that everyone of us has the most important power in that whatever happens to you as long as you are still breathing, you have the power to decide what you do next.

This is Africa’s century and we need entrepreneurs to drive growth in Africa and lift as many people out of poverty as possible. Please let us share experiences so that we may grow together. In the near future, when I get the inspiration, I would like to share my experience with Zimbabweans based outside Zimbabwe about the challenges in trying to run small ventures in Zimbabwe given the distance and time challenges.

My 2017 Comrades journey

On 20 June 2017 I went for my first run after Comrades. I intended to run for only 4kms and I ended up running 9.95kms that evening. Also yesterday morning I ran slightly over 13km and I am now looking forward to my fourth Comrades, this will be a special one as it is being run on my 40 something birthday on 10 June 2018. I think I am ready to talk about my Comrades 2017 journey. My journey towards Comrades 2017 was not easy. During the last weekend of January 2017, I decided to skip the Akasia Marathon qualifying race and drove to Zimbabwe. When I came back, I became seriously ill and the doctor suspected that I had consumed contaminated water in Zimbabwe and he put me on antibiotics which meant that I could not run for over a week. I eventually ran my first qualifying race, Deloitte Pretoria Marathon at the end of February. I took annual leave for the last two weeks of March and drove home to Zimbabwe. I intended to also help my cousin on the farm and eventually run the PPC Matopos 33 miler in my favourite city of Bulawayo on the 1st of April. I booked and paid for my accommodation in Bulawayo. I can’t believe it is now over 9 years since my last visit to Bulawayo!

With less than 2 weeks to the Matopos race, one morning I left my home just outside Harare and decided to run 20km along Mutare road. Within a kilometre, I felt pain in the calf of my right leg. I continued to run for the about 9km but the pain got worse, I had picked up an injury. I decided to stop running for a few days but concentrate on walking long distances as this would also be very handy in the Comrades run. During the last week of March I realised that I could no longer run the Matopos Marathon and I was disappointed. I tried to cancel my accommodation, I was late I missed the deadline by a few hours and I forfeited my money. My most important worry was that with less than 10 weeks to go to Comrades would I recover in time. Early morning on 30 March, I walked over 20km when I went to visit my grandmother and then back to the bus station to catch a lift back to Harare. On the morning of 31 March I decided to run 10km along Mutare road and I ended up running 22km and the pain was still there and I was just ignoring it. On the same day I also walked a distance of about 10km to and from Harare Fourth Street to Mbare Musika to buy the dried Mopani worms that my wife had asked me to buy as I was leaving for Pretoria the following morning.

For me the thing with Comrades is whenever I thought about those hills and the distance that I had to face on 4 June, I would wake up early and run for about 4kms no matter how cold it was, in the evening run up to 15kms on several days and on weekends around 20kms. Also entering Comrades means a total change of behaviour on my part as it also forces me to try and eat healthy. My initial goal when I started running again was to control my weight and the preparations required for running for Comrades works wonders for me. Entering for Comrades works like a strategy document for me, once I have confirmed my entry, I focus my energy towards preparing for Comrades and I try to do all that is required for me to accomplish that goal and the spin off is that I get to lose weight and that I do not get sick often. My flat is on 7th floor, the thought of what awaits me in Kwazulu- Natal province would make me take the stairs instead of the lifts even when I was carrying heavy parcels. I can actually blame running Comrades for my disastrous tenure as a Caretaker at our complex. I remember several times when residents would come to my door and complain why I had not called in the lift company to come and sort the lifts as they had not worked for couple of days and I would apologise that I did not know that the lifts were not working as I do not use them at all. If my wife did not tell me the lift is broken I would not know that it was broken.

I was still not sure if I was fit enough to run the Comrades so I drove to Benoni on 23 April and entered the Robor Scaffolding 42.2km. I ran the first 20km without incident and then the pain started again. I still managed to finish the race in my personal best time of just over 4 hours 20 minutes. I normally visit Zimbabwe every fortnight since I did not want to catch flu just before Comrades so for the whole of May I did not go home. I also tried to avoid crowded places and I became less tolerant of people who sneezed next to me. On top of the pain on my calf I started feeling pain in both knees. I would run a distance and rest for two days and run again ignoring the pain. On Saturday 13 May it was one of the coldest mornings in Pretoria, I left home wanting to run only 4km, I ended up doing 27kms. Thanks to my friend and neighbour at work Kim Naidoo, who convinced me to sign up for uncapped internet at home after we both experienced atrocious service from the satellite TV service provider, I started researching on you tube about the pain I was experiencing on my legs. I saw dozens of videos on how to strengthen my knees. I started to do these exercises and I saw improvements. My last run before Comrades was the 11km I did on 30 May. I continued with the knee and leg strengthening exercises until the race day. We left for Durban on Wednesday 31 May morning for a well deserved holiday before the Comrades race on the following Sunday.

I arrived in Durban CBD around 4:30am on the race day and decided to park the car next to the South Beach and walk all the way to City Hall where the race was starting. I did not want to repeat my previous year’s experience where I could not remember exactly where I had parked the car. When I was going to my seeding pen, I saw a runner who had a vest made from Zimbabwean flag colours and this brought a smile to my face and I greeted him. Just before the race started, we sang the national anthem “Nkosi Sikelel iAfrica”(this also used to be our national anthem back in Zimbabwe, we would sing it at school in the early 80s and at some stage uncle Bob decided to introduce a new national anthem that talks of guns, blood and war). We also sang Shosholoza and the announcer mentioned that it was raining in Cape Town that morning and the runners started cheering and this surely was a good omen as the whole country was worried about the water situation in the Cape. Then the Chariot of Fire theme song came on and the race started. We at the back we would cross the mats at the starting point moments later.

Participating in the Comrades race is one of those profound moments in my life, you tend to forget about the almost impossible task ahead of you and bask in the positive energies all around you. To me everything to do with Comrades from the race itself, the organisers, the spectators, medical teams, police, the runners etc. gives me faith in humanity. I am reminded about what uTata Nelson Mandela wrote in his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom to give testimony to the fact that people are inherently good and kind when he wrote,“Even in the grimmest times in prison, when my comrades and I were pushed to our limits, I would see a glimmer of humanity in one of the guards, perhaps just for a second, but it was enough to reassure me and keep me going. Man’s goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished”. Comrades is a multi-national event, on the route I met runners from countries that are neighbouring South Africa and then countries like India, Australia, UK, Germany, Japan, Canada, USA, Brazil, etc.

I do not trust experts so I try to run my own race the same way. I run as fast as I can for the first half of the race and after that diminishing returns kicks in. If I have run the first half well, I know I can still complete the race even if I struggle in the second half. Taking into account the fact that I was in the seeding which was second from last it meant that I would only start running faster once we were out of the city centre. A few kilometres out of the city, I saw a woman carrying a baby on her back kneeling on the tar road picking up T shirts that had been thrown by runners and this was a reminder to me of the inequalities we have in this continent. The first distance marker I saw said 85km to go and you try to ignore it as it is can easily intimidate you. For the first plus or minus 25km I was running whether it was uphill or downhill. After Cowies Hill, I saw a lady holding a Zimbabwean flag and I shouted “Zimbabwe”. I know I am biased but you must agree with me that the Zimbabwean flag is one of the most beautiful flags around. Just as we got to Pinetown, I was expecting to see my wife Manyoni and our last born Rangarirai whom we named after my beloved late mother. The Comrades route was passing through less than 300 metres from our hotel. I got through the spot and my family is nowhere to be seen. I just figured that at 7am, Manyoni must be fast asleep as she loves her sleep very much. I continue running and my mind is now switched to the upcoming Fields Hill that is less than 3kms ahead. Many spectators are lining the road and some will be offering salt, Vaseline, bananas, chocolates, boiled potatoes, oranges and crisps to runners. For the first half of the race, I stay true to my mother’s instructions “Do not eat at strangers houses”.

I start the ascent on Fields Hill and I realise that many runners are starting to walk and I lower
 my cap so that I do not see all the way up the hill and get intimidated, I can only see a few metres ahead and I continue running. Later on I start to walk before finishing the hill and I know I have done better on the hill than my first up run. As soon as we finish the hill, I start to run again and I caught up with my workmate Randall and he complains that he has picked up an injury on his knee. After about two kilometres we have a small uphill and Randall starts to walk and I felt sorry for him and I kept on running and started to think how long before the pain on my knees comes back again. My goal was to reach the half way mark in less than 5 hours. After the halfway mark I will be tired and diminishing returns will kick in and the slow pace that I will have will be compensated by the good first half of the race. From my experience with walking long distance back at the village after three hours you will become tired whether you are walking slowly or if you are running so I do not buy the idea of running slowly the whole race. Back in the village if they say where we are going is not too far then you must realise they are talking of 20km. If they say it is far then they are talking of 50km or more on foot. In 2002 during the land reform period in Zimbabwe that was a few months before I got my first company car, we once had to visit my aunt at the new farm she was staying and there was no transport going that direction and we walked the whole day. I later measured the distance with the car and it was around 50km.

On the descent before we started the Inchanga hills, I see a couple on the left holding the beautiful Zimbabwe flag and I shout “Zimbabwe Woye”. I then start walking all the uphill and run when it is flat or downhill. Along the way, I see school boys wearing their blue blazers cheering runners and among them I see a few black faces and this immediately reminds me of Peterhouse College back home in Marondera in the 90s. Later on, I see disabled school kids lining the route cheering us on. After Inchanga hills, I come across young African males wearing their majestic Muslim robes also lining the route. Arch Desmond Tutu must have this in mind when he coined the term rainbow nation, not only do we have multi-national participants, we have all races represented and on top of that we have peoples' support transcending religion. At the start of the race, runners next to me had expressed sadness that this years’ addition of the Comrades had taken place during the fasting period which meant that Muslim runners would not participate. As we approached farming areas, a lot of African children were also lining the route and they would be asking runners for the Energade sachets. This scenario illustrates the inequality in the society, about 10km before spectators were offering refreshments to the runners and now these kids are now begging for the drinks from the runners.

I got to the halfway mark within 5 hours which meant I had 7 hours left to finish the second half of the race. I was already tired. I was running whenever it was flat or downhill and then tried to walker faster when it was uphill. With about 30km to go my boss Siya caught up with me and we ran together for a number of kilometres. With about 18km to go, I could feel a blister developing on my right foot and also there was discomfort on my toes, I sat down and took off the shoe and tried to rearrange my socks. Siya passed by and asked if I was okay. I put my shoes on and ignored the pain and started running again.

Retiring this pair after completing 3 comrades with it

With about 10km to go as we started the ascent on to the dreaded Polly Shorts Hill, there were guys offering massages, I think they were from Mercedes Benz Athletics club. I went up to this gentleman and he poured oil on both my legs and massaged my legs for about 30 seconds and I thanked him. I told another runner that I felt much better after the massage and I add that maybe it is just psychological nothing has really changed. Almost everyone is walking as fast as they can up Polly Shorts and I am talking to another runner and he said he will try to run a bit so that he can say he ran up Polly Shorts and I say to him,” I also want to get into the history books lets run”. We ran for about 300 metres and then we start walking again. We then got to the last cut off and we are more than an hour ahead of the cut-off time. When the ground was flat, my brain tells me that I cannot go on, I override my brain and starts running and it becomes downhill. I stop a bit and I start running again until there is a slight uphill and I start walking. When the land is flat and downhill I continue running again.

I see the stadium and I start running and before I get into the tunnel someone from my right hand side shouts my name “Dabson” and I look up and I see it’s a lady from the OUTsurance tent. I continue running and on my left there is a lady standing with a big Zimbabwean flag and I shout to her ”Zimbabwe” and continued running to the finish line, my time is 10 hours 50minutes. I can’t believe it my knees did not give me any problems during the race. After collecting my 3rd bronze medal and the Comrades badge I line up for my first hot meal of the day, a cup of soup and brown bread slices. My teeth are now very sensitive it must be all the oranges I was eating along the race. I try to sit down and I can feel the pain in my leg. I knock my cup of soup by accident and I have to stand up again to go and collect another cup of soup. When I have to sit again to have my meal I ask a runner from Eskom to hold my cup otherwise I will spill this one again. After the meal, I have to look for the OUTsurance tent. I start to feel the pain when I am walking. After an hour, I eventually look for the buses back to Durban and it is getting chilly and I am only wearing a running vest and the short. I got into the bus and I had to cover myself with the bus curtains to stay warm. I am sitting on the two seater and another runner from UK comes and sits next to me. On the opposite three-seater another runner from UK is also seating there. Once the bus is full, the runner seating next to me decides to lie down on the passage and I start talking to the guy on the three-seater. I tell him that I am from Zimbabwe and we started talking about how beautiful Zimbabwe is. It takes us about an hour to get to the highway due to the traffic jam and anyway Comrades runners are a patient bunch we seem not to notice this and continued chatting. I ask the guy for a phone as I want to phone my wife so that she should not worry and he said he does not have a phone with him but I can come with him to his hotel for the phone call, I thank him and I tell him it wont be necessary as my vehicle is in the city.

After about 2 hours the bus drops us nearer South Beach and it is a mission to disembark from the bus. I start talking to this runner I think he said he is from Burundi. We see a novice runner who just completed his first Comrades complaining about all those hills that he went through and he tells us that he will not run Comrades again. We laugh at him a bit and we assure him he will be back next year. After 5 days in Durban tomorrow morning the holiday ends, I will have to drive all the way to Pretoria. I arrive at the hotel and my son tells me that he no longer wants to go back home and he wants to stay in Durban. I also tell him that I also want to stay in Durban and run every day on the beach but I have to work. That night my sleep is erratic as I feel pain everywhere.

Zimbabwe should not fail in farming

From my basic understanding of economics as well as my experiences in living in both Zimbabwe and South Africa. I would say that the average Zimbabwean and Zimbabwe as a country has a competitive advantage when it comes to farming. Moving around in urban areas of Zimbabwe during the rain season, when you find any vacant land chances are someone is growing maize on that piece of land. I was joking yesterday morning with a South African friend that here in SA whenever one sees vacant land they quickly build a shack. A few years ago I visited a South African friend who stayed in a house with a big garden. I could not help but notice that he was not growing vegetables in his garden. I have realised that whenever I come back from my visits from Zimbabwe, my wife always ask me about the condition of the garden at our house in Zimbabwe. We are not typical farmers however it must be due to the environments that we were raised in where our extended families relied on agriculture one way or the other.

When I was growing up we would go to the village (kumusha/ekhaya) during school holidays and I saw first hand that farming was challenging. I was sold this idea that farming was for less educated people. My mother as a daughter of a farmer and also a farmer in her own right had a garden where she would grow vegetables both at Amaveni Police Station were we stayed from from end of 1982 to beginning of 1989 and then at Mbizo Police Station from 1989 to 1990 she had a very big garden where informal traders from Mbizo township would come day after day to buy vegetables from her. In fact I got my first selling experience when after school, I and my sister Rose would carry a dish full of vegetables for sale at the shopping centre nearer to my school Ruvimbo Primary School. In the police camps they did not allow for maize to be grown due to security reasons, so she would grow maize on the vacant council land outside Amaveni Police Station next to the old Gokwe/Zhombe road. Growing crops on council land is against council bye laws and in some years council workers would mow down the maize crop but she and others would grow the crop again the following year. After my father passed on, my mother bought her house in Dombotombo township in Marondera and she continued growing vegetables on all the spaces around her house and she also had space on council land where she would grow maize, pumpkins, groundnuts, roundnuts etc. during the rain season.

Zimbabweans generally value education. My mother would work alone in her garden as she wanted me to concentrate on my books. My mother wanted me to be a teacher and at least she lived to see me become a teacher when I worked as a temporary teacher between 1996 to 1997. Anyway as the eldest child my job would be to water the garden and help here and there to make the compost (as pictured above together with my Friend Ishmael Kunaka we were digging to make a compost in 1993 at my mother’s house).

In 2004 when I was working still working for Zimnat Lion Insurance as an Underwriting manager, Russell Lister an Insurance broker approached me about a Tobacco Hail Insurance Scheme. We then sat down to finalise the scheme with Mr Tarupiwa Tarupiwa from Zimre Reinsurance Company who had the backing of his boss Mr Mufaro Chauruka. It was only then I learnt about the unique climate advantage that Zimbabwe had when it came to Tobacco farming. We visited several farms assessing the tobacco crop after a hail storm. The following year I grew my first tobacco crop.

Amongst my biggest regrets is that when I was growing up, I was surrounded by many farmers such as my martenal grand father and my mother and I never tapped into their expertise. My mother is gone with all her knowledge and I am grateful for the little farming knowledge I grudgingly learnt from her even though I never saw myself as a farmer. I would have to go back home at some point and the reality is with the Zimbabwean economy being what it is, I would have to concentrate on farming. I am having to learn very fast what I should have learnt decades ago.