Mama Akara

Mama Akara

                One day not so faraway, I asked myself, What does business mean? So i took a long walk down the roads I had passed so many times before without taking time to notice the activities around me and what I saw and noticed for the fist time was astounding. Business is equal to busy ness. To me this meant that you just decide to get busy doing something, anything really, that you can exhange time and activity for money. I saw market sellers and traders dealing in a wide variety of commercial products, edibles and non edibles alike, people going about in their hunt for daily or monthly earnings, surviving youths just trying to make another day pass and many more interesting sights. And then I noticed something very strange, the most successful businesses in business terms are those with the consistency of cashflow: Money in (Income), Money Out (Expense). This is the story of one who we will name Mama Akara.

                Every single day, she comes to the same spot at a certain bus stop near where I live and sets her wares at exactly 5:30 pm. Begins to produce her products which include basic fried yam, akara, sweet potatoes and a stew based sauce. Her goods are displayed on a tray by the road side with dust, smoke and whatever else was in the atmosphere, yet people, including myself would come to Mama Akara's place of business to transact with her. After observing a trend in myself and others like me to finding Mama Akaras in a variety of places, I decided to do a study on the business of what she does. Now, I am not going to bore you with the details of how much a standard Mama Akara would invest and all the aligning business information but i will tell you how impressive it is to see, that even though this woman does not hold pedigree according to society, She offers a service that is applicable to all who are near her business stand, either they intended to patronize her or not.

                So i realize, something we knew as children but had forgotten because what we did had now become either skill, talent or qualification to be patronized and negotiated on, what we do naturally can also be offered as a service to be sold but the identity remains the same. We are just always that Akara Lover or Basket Baller or Car Enthusiast. It does not really matter what we do as long as it is something we Love to. Or at least have a tolerable level of operation while doing it. The world has proven, just like Mama Akara that in business, Serving and filling a need is paramount and that any need required can be filled and hence anything we choose can become a business. We get to decide if we are going to enjoy it as we did when we were children or Let it consume our daily living such that we are Lost in what was once Joy. The question remains, Does Mama Akara Love what she does? Do you?