PRESIDENT Hakainde Hichilema once said “climate change is an opportunity to find solutions depending on how your brain is framed.”
And Faustina Nalumande is utilising her skills to navigate through these challenging times by being innovative and taking advantage of the long power cuts to quench people’s thirst for cool water.
Nalumande, a teacher by profession with a Bachelor of Arts in Education and a marketing officer at a named lending company in the country has proved that President Hakainde’s statement is indeed true by tapping into a traditional method for cooling water using a container and gunny sacks locally known as Joe Saka.
A Joe Saka helps to keep drinks refreshingly cool without needing electricity and works by wetting a container and gunny sack which is then placed in the shade to cool water and beverages effectively.
So, frustrated by the lack of cold water and the persistent heat when her area experienced prolonged load shedding, Nalumande reached out to her mother who agreed to teach her how to make the Joe Saka.
This started as a personal solution to beat the room temperature water but quickly turned into an unexpected business opportunity.
“I was inspired by load shedding and the heat because there’s been a shortage of ice and three quarters of the shops don’t have ma gensets and ma solar. When I went to look for water one day, I couldn’t find anything cold so I was stuck that day, so I started thinking like, what am I going to do for me to have cold water again, that’s how I went to mum’s place and couldn’t find any that side,” she narrated to Kalemba.”
“And I said what am I going to do…. I just thought of an idea like let me try to make a Joe Saka because kudala kwenze ma Joe Saka (a long time ago they used Joe Sakas) before fridges [came on the scene]. let me make a Joe Saka to see if it could work. So I told my mom to make for me then she said I will make for you but you will have to learn that’s how I found the Moloshi (gunny sack) and and I zungulukadi (moved about) in town then only bought two because I just wanted cold water.”
She said after looking for the materials, her mother could only manage to make four Joe Sakas which were meant to be for herself and her three daughters.
“So we made four because at the time, I had no business idea, I just wanted cold water. So we made for my two sisters, one for mom and one for me. Looking at the way they looked, we said let’s test if it will work so we put water around 20 and as we were about to go to bed, we found that the water was cold,” she recalled.
It was after this turning point when Nalumande decided to advertise the product which received an overwhelming positive response across the country.
“Then we said let’s advertise this, we see if people will buy then if they don’t buy we forget about it, surprisingly, the response was overwhelming. That’s how I posted on Saturday around 9 and the response was overwhelming within minutes, people started calling me from across the country, others called from Livingstone, Sesheke and many more wanting for me to deliver to them.”
“And I only made four at the time. It was around 11 then I started to deliver and I went to town and checked for materials, I managed to buy and others were even following me home. I had a lot of orders last night, we made 40 and everything was sold out, others are just sending payments without even confirming if the containers are available,” she noted.
The long hours of load shedding are now making people think outside the usual box and go back to the ancient ways.
As the problems persist people will still find ways to make life more convenient, some have even gone back to charcoal pressing irons, and other alternatives.
By Catherine Pule
Kalemba, September 23, 2024
