Fresh and Good

“I’m going to tell my wife I’ve been shooting chicks all day.” Mark grins slyly, it’s another one of his dodgy comments. What he actually means is that we’ve been photographing broiler chickens at the Nqabayemsimbi Poultry Co-operative in Gamalakhe, Port Shepstone.

Chickens are big business in Africa and there are many successful poultry enterprises meeting this demand. As a micro enterprise it’s ideally suited to support income generation and job creation, which is why is the Old Mutual Foundation has invested R200 000 into this business, as a joint venture with Ezemvelo KZN.

Fakazile Mkhize is a clear-minded, determined business woman with a sunny disposition and cheeky dimples when she smiles. She has a 15 year old daughter Nosipho, and when I enquire about a husband, she shakes her head. No husband, I check? She confirms this is so, “And no stress,” she adds.

Fakazile Mkhize, entrepreneur and businesswoman.

Their co-operative started in 2002 with 30 chickens in a small mud room (18m²) with start-up capital provided by founding co-op members each paying in R50. Ten years later, the co-op has a joining fee of R500 per member and consists of 10 members who are all present for our visit. They’re neatly kitted out in orange t-shirts with the name and slogan of their business, “Fresh and Good”. Currently their business is based in a single broiler house with three separate rooms. Every two weeks, the co-op purchases 200 day-old chicks (costing R1000) and raises them over a six week period. Thereafter the chicken are taken to market and sold live at approx R45 each.

The Nqabayemsimbi Co-operative, standing outside their new broiler house.

It’s a simple business principle based on supply and demand. The demand is high in this region and their business supplies the product. The co-op costs revolve around feed for the chicks, electricity for infra-red lights and vaccines and vitamins to prevent diseases. Currently they deal with 600 chicks, and now with funding from the Old Mutual Foundation they have built a second broiler house capable of housing 800 birds. The new broiler house has been completed and is awaiting certification and approval from the Dept. Agriculture. They have an appointment with the inspector next week. Fakazile grins, “As soon as we have that certificate, we’re putting chicks in. We’re ready and waiting.”

The new broiler house funded by Old Mutual Foundation can house 800 chicks.

I look around me and everything is neat, organized and clean. There is a clear roster of duties 'iTime Table' handwritten on the notice board. Fakazile already has plans for expansion; a third broiler house, an abattoir to sell prepared chicken (better income) rather than live chickens, and she wishes to investigate installation of solar-panels to reduce her electricity costs. After visiting so many projects, one quickly gets a sense of those which are thriving, and it’s satisfying to know that this one definitely is.

(Above) Proud chicken producer, Fakazile Mkhize and the Nqayabemsimbi Co-operative (below).

Who me?

Chicks of a different sort, bathing Zulu maidens!

We pack up our gear and head out, deciding to drive up the coastal road towards Durban rather than the N2.  This is KZN, and despite being winter it’s green and warm. There are ladies selling huge avos every 500m on the side of the road, bordering fields of waving sugar-cane tops. We stop for lunch at The Curry Den, selling rotis, samoosas and bunnychow. As we drive past Hibberdene, Pennington and head towards Amanzimtoti, Tim starts recounting memories as a young teenager growing up in this area. He points out the shop where he bought his first Bob Marley necklace. I lean forward and tease, “So were you a bit of a teenage 'joller’?” He grins bashfully and we pack up laughing, I guess at some stage we were all young and carefree! This of course sets them off trying to remember the teenage lingo used in those days:-
- to ‘charf’ the chicks (to smooth talk the girls)
- pull in, ek sê (to arrive somewhere)
- to 'graunch' someone (to kiss someone), the boys hoot with laughter at this one!!
- And of course, ‘getting ‘fresh’ with someone (to 'make out'!)

By now we’re heading into rural Umbumbulu to visit a Habitat for Humanity beneficiary who received a house this year from Old Mutual. Since 2003, the Old Mutual Foundation has partnered with Habitat for Humanity and funded the construction of 86 low-cost houses throughout Gauteng, Western Cape and KZN. Over the years, approximately 5230 Old Mutual staff have been given one day’s social responsibility leave to become involved with building these houses. It’s a much-anticipated activity on the Staff Volunteerism calendar, whose aim is to support vulnerable members of the community.

Gogo Thembakile Mkhize (74), Umbumbulu, KZN, proud homeowner of her first mortar home. Partnering with Habitat for Humanity SA, her house was funded by the Old Mutual Foundation and built by Old Mutual staff volunteers.

Today we meet Gogo Thembakile Mkhize. Through our interpreter Amon Shezi (Habitat KZN coordinator) I ask her how old she is, she gives me the year of her birth, 1937. She is shorter than me, a little wizened and is wearing a neat yellow pinafore dress and apron. Around her wrist is a bracelet of wooden beads depicting Jesus and scenes from the Gospels. I can see she’s a bit nervous having us there, her hands folding and unfolding her apron ties while she talks. Gogo Mkhize has nine children (four have passed away), 10 grand-children and 12 great grand-children. Her husband passed away in 1992 from TB.  Living with her now are five children, five grand-children and seven great grand-children. Their homestead consists of two mud huts, one of which has two rooms.

Mark’s photos will convey the living conditions of the Mkhize family. I can only describe it as sobering, a hovel with mud walls. Their reality is one of malnutrition, ill-health and lack of protection from the weather. “If it rains,” Gogo Mkhize explains, “We must get up to put plastic against the leaks and containers to catch the water.”

(Above) Inside the Mkhize's two-roomed mud house, Umbumbulu, KZN (below).



The impact of brutal poverty on young lives facing circumstances larger than themselves.



Mark's comment: 'What gets me here is the lost look... '



Looking out onto an uncertain future.
Mark's comment: 'The boy cross of door threshold.'

Gogo Mkhize with her daughters and grandchildren.Their new home will provide a greater sense of dignity, improved protection and be healthier for the family.

I ask her about her new house. (She will move into it in two weeks time with a Habitat dedication ceremony). She laughs, showing her few teeth, covers her face “Yo, it is good!” she exclaims and then sets off rapidly in isiZulu, her hands adding to what’s she describing. Receiving this house has been an answer to prayer; it is like a dream, she is so happy that she feels reborn, fresh like a young girl. She has already chosen her bedroom which she points out me to. “Although I eat little,” she gestures, “I’m gaining weight because of the satisfaction in my heart.” Will she have a party when she moves in, I ask? She giggles and shuffles a few dance moves. Even Amon laughs.

I wondered if Gogo knew that Old Mutual had funded her house. Of course, she nods and opens her pinafore to show me that she's especially wearing her Old Mutual Care & Share t-shirt underneath. (The KZN staff volunteers had built her house earlier in May this year, so a number of extra volunteer t-shirts were distributed to the families that we were working with.)

It is time for us to go; we still have to travel to Durban. Later that evening, I find myself looking around the room of my well-appointed guesthouse with its pristine white linen and Top Billing touches. I can’t shake off this strange juxtaposition of realities, standing here now, having been in an indescribable hovel an hour ago. I chat with the guys and we're all feeling a bit disjointed, so we decide to head out for a reality check, I take them to my favourite spot in Durban, Kebabish, a little Pakistani eatery on the wrong side of town. We eat with our hands and the food is simple and good.

Grateful for simple north-Indian tandoori food on a Durban evening.