Friday, May 8, 2015

Malawian Of The Moment: Bobby Joe Mlongoti




Ask any Peace Corps volunteer who knows their stuff to show you around Mzuzu, and they will without fail end up showing you around The Greenshop Foundation, a Malawian ran storefront that provides unique fruits, vegetables, coffee, cakes, snacks as part of the store front and also offers training for disabled community members. The Greenshop Foundation is set amongst a lush garden where its founder Bobby Joe Mlongoti grows much of the produce on sale. Bobby is one of my favorite members of the Mzuzu community and I always stop by to say hello.




In its new location, set on one of the busier and underdeveloped (but growing) back streets and facing a slew of small businesses, the Greenshop is a pillar of peace and quiet. As you walk onto the lot you are greeted by beautiful border plantings and wonderful landscaping. A big open hallway on the right of the building leads to the back garden.




Signs along the way indicate you will find seedlings for sale and that chocolate cake is the special desert of the day. Others have the sign language alphabet posted and indicate that this is a vocational center for the disabled (more on that later).




Inside there are rows of local produce bordered by jam and baobab coffee that is made right here in the store. The variety of colors in the room reflect a diversity of fruits and vegetables that are rarely found elsewhere in the city markets.






A table is covered by books with titles like ‘The Permaculture Garden’, ‘East African Agriculture’, and ‘Back Garden Seed Saving’. Even the toilets are unique - they face chalkboards where people are encouraged to scribe their thoughts and praises. (Highlights include ‘The world needs more places like this’ and ‘No discrimination, let’s love each other’.




 Opened late 2014, this new setup and location is the result of years of hard work and recent collaboration with Jan and Lonneke, a couple from the Netherlands. It is a Sunday when I come to visit Bobby, and though the store is normally closed he has agreed to meet with me while he does some extra work. He leaves the shop doors open as he teaches two of his hearing impaired employees how to make Guava jam and juice for sale later in the week.




Several times during our conversation he steps aside to greet the wayward customer, curious about this new store and its purpose. He always meets them with a calm smile and happily answers all of their questions.




When he finally gets a break he sits down with me to answer my questions before showing me around the garden.




Born in 1963, now married and with 3 children, Bobby got his start in produce in 1998. He had watched at a local grocery store as people came to buy fruits and vegetables that were harder to find in the open air market.

“I thought to myself that if I could make a business of this (selling unique produce) that I could find my place in life”

He started selling fruits and veggies as a street vendor outside of that same grocery store. Over three years he developed a reputation as having some of the best produce around and was selling to tourists and many of the local lodges and resorts. In this time he started thinking ahead – in 1999 he bought a garden ~10k outside of Mzuzu where he began growing most of his goods. He also bought the land where his store currently sits in 2009.

From 2001 to 2014 he operated out of a small storefront a few hundred meters away, having been helped in setting up shop there by a German volunteer working with GTZ. In that time he was robbed twice, in 2009 and 2010. Both times were around the Christmas season and in both cases they took everything in the store except for his unique produce scale, which still sits on the sales desk at the new location.




Bobby is not shy of trying to grow new things, and since I have met him have seen him begin cultivating a variety of plants that are virtually unheard of in the region. (Currently he is excited to harvest his first asparagus, saying he has never tried it before!) His ingenuity, eagerness to learn, and willingness to try new things in his business model has paid off. In 2012 he won a prestigious award for “Best Small Medium Micro Enterprise in Africa”. After this he attracted the interest of Jan and Lonneke, who it sounds have been crucial in helping him to expand his business model, and also to build and finally move to the new location. With the help of these two he has also begun to learn about permaculture and permagardening techniques which he is applying to the store garden.




When I ask him how he views permaculture he describes it as “Better farming techniques that help with (preventing) erosion and utilizing a small space for more crops. You protect the soil so much!”




He also hopes to expand the use of this new skillset to his big garden (3 hectares!) outside of Mzuzu to establish an area of permaculture there as well. In the meantime he has also been using his growing knowledge to do community level development in a few different ways. He teaches community members near his big garden about diet diversification and conducts training sessions on improved agriculture techniques.




He really beams when he starts to talk to me about opening his new location to community members living with disabilities. He has specifically started working with hearing impaired students to help them become more productive members of society. He goes on to talk to me about how Malawian culture tends to neglect them and view the hearing impaired as useless. It is clear from our conversation that he wants to push back against this stereotype.




He has 5 students who are employed in the store, and he has classes in a large classroom at the back from 2-4 pm every day covering topics like agriculture, business, and home economics. He met the students through the local branch of the Malawi National Association for the Deaf. He chose to work with the hearing impaired first because of how segregated from society they are here, but wants to open up these services to other disabilities in the future.




As we start to wind down our conversation he takes me on a quick tour of his garden and I snapped a few photos as he points out the new plants he has growing.



















I ask him what his plans are for the future.
“For now I want to just grow the business, but I hope to successful enough to expand to another city and use the resources to reach more of the deaf community”

I love it. Bobby is without a doubt one of my biggest heroes in this country.

Hope you enjoyed this installment!

For more information on The Greenshop Foundation check out this link

Use google translator on the webpage, as it is not in english.

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