Karibu Lodge: brainchild of Nyeleti Mushwana

A decade later, her mother cried again, but this time from happiness when the staff threw a party for her at Karibu Lodge and the NMN Grand Hotel, which together make up the leisure and conference centre Mushwana runs near Tzaneen, in Limpopo.

"She was humble and scared and overwhelmed, but very happy," Mushwana says.

She felt a little overwhelmed herself last month when she won the Shoprite Checkers Women of the Year awards category for Socio-economic Business Developers. Her efforts to train rural women helped clinch the award, which applauds initiatives that encourage more women to venture into business.

Her operations provide crucial employment in an area where there is little other hope of finding work. Of her 134 staff, 97 are female, because this is an area of absent husbands who have left to seek work in the cities. Finding decent skills is impossible, she says, so she employs women with no experience and trains them.

The hotel decor was designed by Mushwana as she couldn't afford an interior designer, and the classy results show she didn't need one anyway.

The conference facilities look immaculate and the food is superb, and it's all the more remarkable for being in the back of beyond.

"When I first went around marketing myself, people wouldn't believe it was a quality establishment," she says. She re-enacts a conversation with a government official responsible for organising events, which ended abruptly when he hung up, blustering that he wasn't prepared to stay in a rondavel or dormitories.

"It was difficult to market until people came to see it, because we don't believe in ourselves as black people.

"People have been driving past for years and never thought of coming in because they think it's a nothing of a place, they believe we can only do something small and shameful."

Mushwana is quick-witted and quick to act, and sometimes enthusiastically rushes into things before thinking them through completely.
But that tactic has worked well so far.

"I grew up as a person who likes to ask a lot of questions and I always wanted to have a reason for waking up in the morning, so I was a hardworking person and serious about life."

There's humour, too, as she tells me about the secret code she uses to warn her staff about any awkward customers.

When the hotel is busy, Mushwana is in the kitchen, pursuing her love of cooking that launched the entire venture. The start-up money came from a catering firm and a security company she previously ran, and because no banks were willing to lend her money, she mortgaged her house to raise the rest: "I was 100% sure it was going to fly."

She gained that confidence after conducting a feasibility study by ringing the handful of existing hotels in the area and pretending she was a government official wanting to book conference facilities for a group of 40. When they all told her they were fully booked for the next six months, Mushwana realised there was room for another one.

Her affinity for the hospitality business came from her father, who started a guest house in Tzaneen.

She had tried to persuade him to set it up out of town, where land was cheaper and it would attract more visitors, but he refused: "When I started this business, I went to his grave and said, 'Remember that concept we once engaged in - I want to take it outside the village and I want your blessing'," she says.

She bought a 34ha plot and immediately began building. She didn't know it was illegal without planning permission, environmental studies and a host of other paperwork. When her brother warned her about those regulations, the work came to a halt, with some walls already at waist height.

"It was a very big project for me to have taken on and I got a bit stressed and scared towards the end," and her worries have not yet evaporated entirely.

"I still think at times, what's all this about? Is it about the money? Why am I pushing myself so hard? But I can't imagine doing anything other than pushing for growth. I have pushed myself to a level where I get stressed now when there's nothing to do."

Looking back, she says she can't believe how well she has done. Looking forward, the view is bigger still.

"I'm the kind of person who dreams big. I'll be going to Durban because when events happen in Durban, you can't get accommodation, and I'll be coming to Johannesburg, and maybe I can open my eyes and think even bigger."

Initially, she planned to build a third hotel in Tzaneen, because when her centre hosts a conference for 600 delegates, the 140 bedrooms are inadequate. But now she has mellowed to become a little more calculating and a little less headstrong, and realises that may not be the smartest option.

"This time I'll be cool and put everything in place and get the money first before I start looking at bricks," she grins.

"Provinces like Limpopo are more dependent on the public sector for business, so if things are not going well for the public sector, things don't go well for businesses like mine. In this recession, you can't just build for the sake of building. I haven't scrapped the idea because we don't have many facilities in Tzaneen, but if I can get land in Johannesburg, I'll start there immediately because there are businesses to target."

Mushwana also plans to build a youth development centre in Tzaneen to give unemployed youngsters a chance to learn new skills and keep out of trouble. The local chief has donated some land and she will invest her prize money from Shoprite Checkers in the project. She is also applying for funds from the European Union, the United Nations and local corporations.

She dreams of after-school classes in sport, ballroom dancing and ballet, fine art and computer studies.

"Everything that will help young people develop into our future cream of the crop. I want an establishment where we can take our youth out of the path of HIV/AIDS and crime by helping them discover their talent and enhancing that talent so we have highly motivated and well-developed youths.

"There are no other opportunities. It's a very dire environment, which is why they all enjoy themselves playing together and making babies, and that's what I want to change."

She knows about having babies too soon, with a 27-year-old son born when she was 20. "I started early because I didn't have anything to do, and I don't want kids to be like me."

She may not want girls to emulate her early days, but as a successful black female hotelier and mentor, she's poised to become a highly visible role model, one well worth watching.

Source: Business Day via I-NET Bridge