If you walk into the market in Manjacaze, you might be very impressed. I think Manjacaze has one of the best markets in Gaza, but I also am a bit biased.
The market in Manjacaze has a few things that I really love. First is the fancy “banca” owned by a sassy lady I just call Dona. She also refrains from asking my name and calls me Amiga. Now a fancy banca really means she has a stall with lots of different convenience items. She is my go-to lady for bug spray, toilet paper, dish soap, etc. She also sometimes has great chocolate cookies and quality fruit juice, so if I feel like splurging, there is always a place for that. She also knows when I am baking as its her banca I go to when I need flour and sugar. She especially appreciates when I bring her a cookie the next day.
Another frequent stop I make is at my modista's banca. My modista (dress-maker), Irene, has a hard time keeping to a schedule. If she tells you your dress will be finished by Tuesday, you might get it Thursday or Friday or maybe the following Wednesday. Despite her difficulty sticking to a schedule, she does a very good job, and only laughs a little bit when I ask her to make my hems shorter and to take the ruffles and the sleeves off my sun dress. She works with two other younger women who always have questions about American culture and always promise to make me a very nice dress for when I go home.
The next part of the market could be overwhelming for you if its your first time in a Mozambican market. Stall after stall of similar products at similar prices make it hard to chose which cute little lady you will patronize that day. If someone has given me a good deal once, they become my go-to. I also reward creativity, so if someone reasons with me why I want to buy cabbage instead of green beans or explains that September is the best month to make collard greens, I will probably be convinced. I am also a very loyal customer, and the market ladies know that, so they have begun to try to get my attention when I head straight for my favorite place for lemons. That said, I have had to spread my loyalty around. I now have one lady whose tomatoes I like, another who has good sized garlic, one who I buy eggplant from, etc. The other ladies in the market have started to get a little jealous. When I walk past their stalls they ask why I don't want onions and I just smile. Customer service is everything in the market.
I once asked one of my market friends why they don't go sell their products elsewhere. Certainly, finding a street corner that wasn't full of ladies who were also selling bananas, beans, dried fish, and lettuce would make selling your product easier. The lady responded quite simply, “but my friends are here.”
Much about having a business in Mozambique is about having something to do during the day. Most Mozambicans are subsistence farmers. They often do not have jobs outside of the home, and having a job that gets you to the market everyday is exciting. Its fun to know all the other ladies and no one is really competitive. Prices are the same at every stall and if you don't like the mushy tomatoes from your favorite lady, she will point you to her friend who has less ripe ones.
Last week I organized a financial management and business skills seminar for a few of the church leaders Mozaic works with. We were discussing different business opportunities and, more often than not, people reverted back to businesses with which they were already familiar. I discussed with them about how selling chickens is not a good idea if there are already five other people in the market selling chickens and I was greeted with blank stares.
The non-competitive nature of Mozambicans made businesses training a challenge. We discussed the importance of not giving big discounts or free products to your friends and family and overall the group agreed that it would be impossible to avoid. We discussed having a service that was better than the others available in the community and everyone agreed that it would be better to work with others with that same service and talk about improving their overall efficiency as a co-op.
At the end of the training, I think the group did go home with an idea of the importance of competition and critical thinking about the viability of a given product or service.
But when it comes to them deciding what kind of businesses they want to open, I bet the majority still chose selling tomatoes. And I cant blame them, the tomato ladies are so much fun.
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