THE ENDLESS JOURNEY

BUSINESS AT INITIAL STAGE

The system of opening and closing the door by yourself am sure it's the best in this world. Being self centred and self driven is everyone’s dream. Before completion of high school, I had hoped to become independent as soon as i leave the school. But all that was destructed by joining father’s shop. So after receiving a big blow from love, my mind started to think at a very high rate, the urge to be creative and innovative increased.

I wanted to catch up with the life of those boys who were living nicely and confortable. I also wanted to be part of the smart phone network and move along with the rest.
Together with my twin sister Haula, we discovered a new venture of making passion fruit juice. The idea was delived from the juice that Haula had made for lunch. “Shakilu why don't we make juice and start selling it,” she asked. Since the shop had no passion fruit juice, I was also proposing the idea. We started it with $4 and we could pack the juice in white polythene bags (kavera). People were supportive to our business and i recall we even made a poster that talked about the presence of juice.

But in that business our dream was to buy smart phones for ourselves. Indeed the dream succeeded and we managed to purchase two smartphones from Nokia. They were Nokia Asha 39..something. Then after sometime, Haula stopped coming at the shop since she was assigned to work with our big sister Shaluwa at the soda deport. So her departure some how weakened me but i went ahead with the business until when the rainy season knocked and people stopped buying frequently.

I had to stop the business inorder to control losses.But the end of passion fruit juice marked the beginning of another venture. A tribe in Uganda called the Baganda have a saying; ”if you don’t want become rich, trade in pots and eggs”. So the Baganda for many years back didn’t trade in those two due to the fear of easy destruction of those products. An egg easily breaks unless it lands on a mattress.
My second venture was trading in eggs. By that time i had no enough capital and the one i had could only afford ten trays of eggs and each tray consisted of thirty eggs.

Getting suppliers was another heavy load, most of them were not willing to provide me with eggs claiming to have customers who already booked. Things were not moving the way I expected them. I could leave the shop and then move on foot to the areas of Mutundwe hill looking for poultry farmers. The empty trays in my hands didn’t exceed ten fitting the amount of money i had. It involved moving sometimes during hot days, being insulted and i even lacked transport to move the eggs to the shop.

And farmers always want to supply the small sized eggs to low rate buyers keeping the big sized for those who buy in large quantities. One day i was directed to some home which is also situated in Mutundwe. The house was big enough and i recall it was painted white, fenced and it had the main gate plus the small gate. So i knocked with confidence on the small gate, a lady in her 20s opened for me. But after entering, she closed the gate and locked it with a padlock.

I became scared and wondering what was going to happen next. The big lady came out and she seemed to be the owner. She welcomed me and i was taken to the store where they kept eggs. Her eggs were good and big in size but expensive. So I purchased five trays and then I was later led outside. She told me that they lock the house incase a stranger comes in inciting security as the reason. Many weird things happened during the search for suppliers.

However much looking for suppliers was difficult, getting buyers for sure it wasn’t difficult. The ready market of Chapat sellers fuelled the business and since my price was a bit low, most of them were willing to support me. Ladies selling chips were also part of the game. In other wards the business was running smoothly. I happened to shift from ten trays to thirty which was a big success in business.

Though I had many customers, a few were potential and trustworthy. I could supply eggs during morning and collect the money in the evening. But getting money wasn't a walk over. People really don’t want to clear debts. Many even ran away with my money a thing that constituted to my set back.

The big blow finally came up as i visited some place to collect the eggs. The transactions were made perfectly with happiness and the Mzee decided to call his boy John to help me transport the eggs to the shop using his bicycle. We started putting the trays on the bicycle till ten of them had fitted. But the trays suddenly slit off the bicycle landing on a cemented ground. There was only one tray collected and the rest were left to those who had cups and spoons. I moved back to the shop weak and confused.

The better days i had expected were turning into darkness. The fall of the eggs venture made me strong to attack more and more ventures. This was the beginning of independance.