I grew up in Komatipoort. My mother had a food gardening business. After school each day she would load up a basket with fruit and vegetables and I had to go around the neighbourhood selling.

I liked school but, in those days, we had to pay school fees and there was no money, so I left in Grade 10. That was when, in 1986, I came to what we now call Gauteng. I had friends who were already working here. They came back home for the Christmas holidays and when they were about to leave again, I decided to go with them.

When I arrived in Johannesburg, I got a job almost immediately, but those people didn’t pay me. They were bad people. They didn’t pay their staff, and they harassed the customers. That shop is closed now. They had bad energy. After three months I left. I started to work for myself in April 1986 and since then I have been self-employed. Thanks to God and hard work I have been successful. I am a single parent, but I have put my children through school. One is studying computers. One has a security certificate.

I sell salt, Simba chips, sweets, peanuts, scarves and all sorts of other things. I sell from my house. I sell from outside the school gates. I sell at church. I am always on the lookout for business opportunities. It is not easy, but it is possible. A lot of people are just lazy. They sit there doing nothing and then they say ‘you are so strong, please give me tea bags and sugar’. I try to teach them the only way to get money is to work. Nothing comes if you just sit or sleep. I do agree that business is hard work, but hard work is the only way. I don’t even have time to clean my house. I wake up at 5am and by 6am I am at the school gates, selling. I put alarms on my phone to remind me where I need to be at what time.

I work alone. I want to know what is happening with my business at all times. I want to know for sure that no mistakes have happened. Because I work with food and children, my business is all about trust.