From humble beginnings to the limelight in  Hollywood, their success is for every ordinary African with big dreams and a bigger mission.



From the dusty rural Moutse village in South Africa’s
Limpopo province to the bright lights of Hollywood, the Ndlovu Youth Choir have
proven there can be no impediment to global glory if your ambition is great and
your passion greater.



When this group of young boys and girls came together, little did they know the world would rise in unison to applaud them. Late last year, their turn as the finalists of America’s Got Talent, a televized American talent show competition in the United States created by Simon Cowell, earned them prowess and praise.



So when an opportunity came to meet them at popular South
African restaurant Nando’s in the suburb of Lorentzville in Johannesburg,
during a launch event last month, I seized it with conviction and my camera.



The choir’s co-founder and choirmaster Ralf Schmitt started from the beginning, about how he got involved with the group at the opening of the amphitheater in the village of Moutse.



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What started out as a mission to serve the community ended up becoming an even greater force – on the world stage.



“This is the same village that raised the Ndlovu Youth Choir powered by the Ndlovu Care Group. The group was doing amazing work with HIV awareness and treatment in the early 2000s and the amphitheater was built for the community to gather, receive information and do drama workshops around HIV/AIDS.”



Schmitt was contacted to do music for the opening in 2008 because of his track-record in the industry, as he was also part of the internationally-renowned Drakensburg Boys’ Choir.



“I’ve always loved choir and singing. I went on to study music and it worked from day one. I started conducting school choirs and worked with young people. I love composing, I love conducting, I love performing and I love teaching and the medium of a choir allows me to do them all,” he enthuses. 



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow"> These young people can be the beacons of what’s possible in a rural community. <cite>Ralf Schmitt</cite></blockquote>



He had originally suggested they start a brass band but
because of their location in Limpopo, far from big city Johannesburg, it would
have been difficult for the teachers and trainers to regularly access and
develop them.



The choir became the obvious choice as part of the orphans and vulnerable children’s program at the Ndlovu Care Group.



The horrific HIV pandemic had left many orphaned and the program was meant as a healing curriculum for the community. It became so successful that when it came for the participants to leave school, they were not willing to leave the program as they were unable to find employment or afford secondary education.



Schmitt says thus an idea of transforming the choir into a platform to generate an income for unemployed youth was born.



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Today, the choir boasts about 40 members and includes a job creation program for the older singers who do most of the performances.



The choir has also started a home schooling program for learners – a full-time tutor travels with them locally and internationally.



“When we turned professional in 2018, it took about six months to get us going. I called a few people I knew in the industry and bookings were coming in slow,” recalls Schmitt.



“We needed a product and the arrangement we did of a Zulu version of Shape Of You by Ed Sheeran, brilliantly translated by Sandile Majola and Sipho Hleza, went massively viral on social media and had 25 million views and that got the nation’s attention and that was the first time we got serious publicity and bookings started flooding in.” 



Soon after, the choir performed live for a South African radio station and that’s where America’s Got Talent heard the Zulu arrangement and made contact and asked for videos. 



He remembers he couldn’t get the videos out to the producers
because of service delivery protests in the area. The choir conductor was
blocked by an angry mob with burning tyres and rocks, but that didn’t stop the
choir from performing at the Derby Theatre miles away from home. 



“I am so pleased that these young people can be the beacons
of what’s possible in a rural community, every single one of them are from that
community and not anyone went and studied music at tertiary level, all that is
produced is raw talent and they never had a music lesson in their life. As the
artistic director, I try very hard at preserving that talent because that’s the
magic,” he says. 



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The first time they got on stage, he recalls thinking that
the audience didn’t know them; they probably just saw the group as kids from a
rural community in South Africa. 



However, the warmth they received was unforgettable.
Whereas, in comparison, the experience at America’s Got Talent was intense and
draining, but exhilarating, he recalls.



“It was nerve-racking when the music went down and the lights dimmed and Gabrielle Union [American actress] screamed ‘you are going through!’ and everyone just lost their minds. It was special we were through to the live finale.”



Thulisile Masanabo is one of the senior members in the choir
who also assists with wardrobe. She has been with the choir since 2013 when she
was 16 and very shy. 



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“I used to stand at the back of the row at the beginning. As
the years went, I began to gain confidence and moved to the third row, then
second, now, I’m in the first row,” says Masanabo.&nbsp; 



She opened the song Africa by Toto wearing bright yellow
garments to a noisy and ecstatic American crowd. 



Looking back, she chuckles saying she had auditioned singing
the South African national anthem. 



“I was on my way back from school and Sandile called me in.
He was standing outside and just calling people in to audition. He didn’t want
to know if you can or cannot sing,” Masanabo says of her recruitment into the
group. 



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="683" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/IMG_1339-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-43247" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/IMG_1339-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/IMG_1339-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/IMG_1339-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/IMG_1339-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/IMG_1339-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/IMG_1339.jpg 1920w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>



All members of the choir are under the age of 30; among
them, is 25-year-old Majola who helped arrange the Zulu version of Shape Of
You.



He joined when he was a 14-year-old school boy accompanying
his sister to the auditions. 



“I was invited inside to try my luck on August 23, 2009,” he
recalls vividly. 



“I first traveled internationally with the choir in 2011 to
Holland and the performance was average, it was not as nice as we perform
today.”



He says the choir upped his self-esteem and he now can
communicate better with people and perform more effectively on stage. 



One of the songs instilled in him was written by Schmitt
titled Believe dedicated to the choir.



 “The message was for us, but now, it’s for other young people as well. They should never stop dreaming,” says Majola. 



This young group of music-lovers is testament that believing
and dreaming big can indeed make you cross borders. 



Their journey was from a tiny village, to grabbing the
limelight in one of the globe’s biggest talent search shows. The world is now
truly their stage.

America’s Got Talent – Season 14

The Talented Choir That Never Had A Music Lesson

It’s a Monday afternoon, a band of nobodies are sweating it out for practically nobody in a small room in South Africa’s Limpopo province. This is Shayamore (which means hit more) rehearsing for their next gig.
As the band plays, I find myself tapping and nodding to the rhythm. It’s hard to believe that a hot and raw talent like this is unknown.
The band is made up of five members, for whom music is their daily bread: Goodman Mndawe, a bassist; Solly Ndlovu, a pianist; Lazarus Silubane, a guitarist; Surance Chimbilini, a pianist, and Thabo Khoza, a drummer. For 18 years, they’ve been working and playing in vain.
“We’ve performed in a lot of places but we’ve never had any exposure or media interviews. This is actually our first interview ever,” says Silubane, co-founder of the band.
Gigs are as scarce as interviews.
“We sometimes go for three months without booking any shows,” says Silubane.
“We have to spend our own money to organize gigs, design posters and distribute it just to get our names out there,” says Khoza.
On Sundays they do jazz sessions in taverns. They charge R3, 000 ($215) for a performance and share it between themselves.
“We end up coming back with R2, 000 ($145) because of expenses like transport and food. And then we have to divide the money by five.  And it happens that we hire dancers as well and have to pay them,” says Khoza.
To them music is life as well as bread.
“Music feeds my soul… I can tell my story through this music,” says Khoza.
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For Khoza, who joined the band in 2014, becoming a musician wasn’t easy.
“After my mother passed away I had to stay with my aunt and she wanted me to become something else. I lost my relationship with my dad. Every time I would run away and go to practises, until she was convinced that I’m really serious about music. Then I started playing music in clubs and local taverns. I had a guitar which was a gift from someone,” he says.
“I had to sell the guitar for R700 ($50) because I was desperate for money and I needed to move out of my father’s place. I couldn’t stay with him when he didn’t believe in me and my music. When I went back to Mpumalanga that’s when I met Lazarus and he introduced to me to the band,” says Khoza.
“Every time we’re behind the instruments we tell ourselves that we are on a big stage, even if there’s no spotlight, and that the universe will one day recognize us.”
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They want to release an album, but money is a problem.
“We don’t want to be signed under any record label because we’ll lose our freedom to do music the way we want. Our aim is to be independent,” says Silubane.
“You see this guitar I’m holding, I take it as my lover. And I’ll never stop playing it, only death would stop me,” says Madalwe.
In five years’ time, they want to be like one of the world’s greatest icons, Michael Jackson, and perform in New York and London.
It’s nice to dream, unfortunately the reality says next year this time around they’ll be playing in Limpopo. That’s just the way it is.

Band-054

‘The universe will one day recognize us’

As a young, flamboyant man who toured the world and sold thousands of records all Papa Penny Penny could think about was fame.  Twenty three years later, he thinks young musicians should think about saving their money and life insurance.
Older and wiser, Penny Penny, whose real name is Eric Kobane, talks to us in his home in Nkuri Village, Sifasonke in South Africa’s Limpopo province. He returned to the village, where it all started, in 2003 because he ran out of money.
“We have to understand that death is inevitable, it doesn’t notify you that you’re going to die at a certain time. Therefore people must have insurance for themselves and their families. Even though [musicians] don’t get paid monthly, every little that you get you must save it so that when you die your family will be able to bury you,” says Penny Penny.
“There are so many artists that are being buried by the government. But it’s not obliged to bury us. If I die poor, I would be to blame for not saving.”
Emerging artists should listen. Penny Penny, a veteran of the African music scene and the Shangaan Disco King, as he is referred to, remains relevant today.
He grew up with traditional dance. After years working at a mine, Penny Penny started making demo recordings and sent them to record labels. He was rejected every time.
“My voice was too small, not like this. They kept rejecting me because of my voice. I went to different companies and I remember one producer said I have a voice like a donkey. I was so disappointed but I never stopped,” he says.
His breakthrough came in 1994 when a Tsonga singer and producer, Joe Shirimani, discovered him at the offices of a record label where Penny Penny was working as a cleaner, earning a mere R400 ($29) a month.
“I didn’t have a place to sleep because I had used all my money to make demos. So I was secretly sleeping at the company and at night I’d go into the studio and teach myself how to use the equipment. I got caught. But Joe asked me to sing back-up for another artist. He got the label to record demos with me and from there we did my first album within seven days,” says Penny Penny.
With his first cheque of R150,000 ($10,800) Penny Penny bought a house, in Kempton Park, in Johannesburg’s East Rand.
“Anybody who wants to be a star has to learn to make money and save it. Young musicians go for girls, parties and expensive cars but don’t own a home,” he says.
More than 20 years since Penny Penny released his first album Shaka Bundu, he says it’s harder to find success.
<div id="attachment_31472" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-31472" class="wp-image-31472 size-large" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Penny-0101-1024x686.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="686" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Penny-0101.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Penny-0101-300x201.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Penny-0101-600x402.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Penny-0101-768x515.jpg 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Penny Penny</div>
“This is a very difficult industry. We don’t get money every month; sometimes we get royalties after six months. When it comes you find that we have huge debts that we have to pay back, making it difficult to save.”
According to Penny Penny, South Africans support American artists more than their homegrown musicians.
Penny Penny himself draws bigger crowds away from home. His first performance in Mozambique filled a stadium with 37,000 people.
“We lost six people because of the stampede. I get surprised by the way people treat me; they welcome me in airports just to see if it’s really me,” he says.
It is not only his music that captured the hearts of fans – his flamboyant personality and pineapple phondo are just as popular.
It hasn’t always been good for Penny Penny though. He was accused of beating up his former manager, Lerato Manaka, who claims that he owes her R200,000 for gigs he performed since June 2016.
“My company hired her to be my PR person and to promote my CD with DJ Maphorisa. I didn’t hire her. She promised me a sponsor; I asked to get a contract. She never did, until she faked the contract. She’d organize interviews and then people would demand money from me. How can I owe her if she was the one paying me? Artists get their money from managers after they’ve taken their percentage,” says Penny Penny.
In January 1995, false news of his death circulated. Penny Penny believes the rumours were started by fellow musicians out of jealousy.
“They shot and killed my security guard because they thought it was me,” he says.
Penny Penny has been through a lot of bad publicity and rough times in his career. He rarely gives interviews.
“Media can build and break our careers. Newspapers will put you on the front page and say you did this and that, whereas it’s all lies. Even today, I’m surrounded by lots of propaganda, lies – manga manga business. They’ve been trying to destroy my reputation, I’ve decided not do any interviews again.”
Penny Penny never spent a day in school. For this reason, he is reliant on lawyers for all his business deals.
“In a contract, I only check money. I don’t see a lot of the stuff that is written in there. And I never sign a contract without a lawyer,” he says.
The 57-year-old still works very hard, touring constantly, and he has a reality TV show called Papa Penny Ahee that helps bring in the money. This time it is being used wisely knowing he will never retire.

Penny-0021

If I Die  Poor,  Blame Me

One of the oldest members of Vakhegula-Vakhegula, a soccer club in South Africa’s Limpopo province, is 85-year-old Gavaza Mathebula. This football club is like no other. Also known as ‘soccer grannies’, the club consists of 13 teams, all of whose players are elderly women.
To celebrate women’s month in South Africa, the United Nations (UN) even organized a friendly soccer match between themselves – an all-female soccer team – and Vakhegula-Vakhegula (meaning ‘grannies’ in Tsonga) on August 12. The grannies lost, but overall, they had won hearts even before they started.
Speaking before the kick-off, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women, said sport is usually associated with younger people but projects like Vakhegula-Vakhegula ensure everyone is involved, no matter their age.
On the pitch was 68-year-old Annah Kgofolo, a grandmother of nine, who has been leading  one of the club’s 13 teams since its inception in September 2012. She says playing soccer has immensely helped her and her teammates.
“When we go to the clinic for check-ups now, we find that we are fine, and able to live healthy and do household chores,” she says. They sometimes even play against opponents as young as their grandchildren but are often undermined.
“We have won about three matches so far,” says Kgofolo.
At the end of the match with the UN, the grannies lost 1-0, but the UN signed off with high praise for them, saying they see the ageing population as contributors to the development, and whose capabilities can add value to the society and the country’s policies and programs.
Vakhegula-Vakhegula was started in Limpopo by social worker Rebecca ‘Beka’ Ntsanwisi in 2003, and since then, other villages around the country have encouraged their senior citizens to take up soccer to stay fit.
“Our hope is to play against African countries and to at least be ranked in the top numbers. So far we have played with Zimbabwe,” says Ntsanwisi.
Even a documentary, Alive and Kicking: Soccer Grannies of South Africa, has been made on the soccer grannies, and it has received international attention, scooping several awards. According to the film’s makers, over 40 informal teams have been created across the country.
Representatives from the UN say the growing number of women and grannies playing soccer in various communities testifies the advancement of gender equality in the country as part of the Sustainable Development Goals.
This is especially pertinent as women often stop playing sports to conform to tradition and stereotypes.
Before launching Vakhegula-Vakhegula, Ntsanwisi, a 48-year-old mother of two, had been diagnosed with colon cancer. Her community work and frequent trips to the hospitals made her realize there were “a lot of sick elderly women” who needed help.
She would ask them where they experienced pain. The grannies would point to sore areas on their bodies and that made her realize they needed exercise to combat chronic illness.
Ntsanwisi’s doctors would also goad her to exercise to keep fit and not just depend on pills. This led to her inviting the older women in her community to be part of a soccer club so they could exercise together.
Soccer was the perfect choice for Ntsanwisi because in other sports like netball, players are required to jump.
“Jumping wouldn’t really help them, but soccer is a kicking and running sport. They run which helps the whole body,” she says.
When they are not dribbling or shooting goals, the grannies are making a living selling fruit and vegetables on the streets, or are domestic workers and pensioners.
Their soccer routine involves training twice a week, from 4.30AM until 6AM, after which they head home to commence their chores or get ready for work.
In an area where teenage pregnancy, poverty and unemployment is rife, Ntsanwisi says it is the norm for grannies to look after their grandchildren, but the soccer grannies simply “refuse to babysit”, which then discourages teenage pregnancy.
Vakhegula-Vakhegula is a great example of promoting healthy living among elderly women but it goes beyond the soccer field.
The club is also involved in charity work in their communities aiding poverty-stricken families and granting bursaries to disadvantaged students.
Twice a year, several teams in the club compete in the Top Eight league, also formed by Ntsanwisi in the hope of upholding club morale. In 2014, five grannies from the club joined the festivities of the Soccer World Cup in Brazil.
“The soccer-playing grannies are professional and very busy. We are like Banyana Banyana,” says Ntsanwisi, who is also a radio presenter on a local radio station, Munghana Lonene FM.
Just before entering the pitch, the grannies encourage each other with their vibrant singing. In their native Tsonga, they chant ‘when we get along, we make miracles’. Grandmothers kicking around on a football pitch. To the onlookers, that’s miracle enough.

Granny-team-011

Grannies  Having A Ball

It was a winter’s day in 2007. Ludwick Marishane was sunbathing outside one of his high school friend’s home in Limpopo, near the border with Zimbabwe. Here, even in winter, it’s hot. One of his friends was reluctant to bathe.  Marishane and others nagged him to go and shower. The grimy companion shot back with the question: “Why doesn’t someone invent something you can just put on your skin and avoid the need to bathe?”
With that question ringing in his ears, Marishane went home and began research. He found nothing, but a huge gap in the market. He found that there were 2.5 billion people in the world, of whom, 450 million were in Africa, without running water. Marishane was just 17 with few resources and a love for science. The statistics spurred him on. A few months later, Marishane scribbled the formula into the new product that was to make his fortune. He applied for a patent and launched his start-up, called Headboy Industries Inc.
Three years later, while studying at the University of Cape Town (UCT), Marishane crafted this formula into DryBath, the world’s first bath-substituting skin gel that cleans without water.
“Growing up in the township, where you poured water in a bowl, is not fun, especially in winter. I don’t like this, and I find it quite undignifying, having to kneel and wash myself with water spilling everywhere. You’re using too much soap and you’re not even rinsing yourself properly,” says Marishane. With DryBath, one can avoid this tedious process.
“You put it on, rub it off and wipe with a cloth and you’re done. You’re clean. And you could have done it anywhere,” says Marishane.
It has the same effect as an anti-bacterial cleanser, but it is odorless as it cleanses and moisturizes.
“It’s actually unhealthy for people to be bathing twice a day, especially if you’re not gyming. That’s why the different lotions are always trying to repair the damage done to the skin,” says Marishane.
All good, so far, then there was the question of money.
With the patent for DryBath in the bag, Marishane sought funding from about 80 investors. In vain.
“You’re too young and this product is too expensive,” they said.
As a last resort, Marishane entered competitions in a bid to fund his business with prize money. It worked.
“To date we’ve never had to raise debt or get outside investment. That’s how we’ve been able to own the company and everything included,” he says.
DryBath is sold to airlines and armies. Headboy Industries Inc. is currently designing a 500ml bottle and tube to replace sachets, which are expensive to make.
“So we decided now to put it in bottles, that would provide enough baths for a whole month. And we are going to sell that for about $4, which is essentially the price you’d pay for four or five sachets,” he says.
As we talk in his Cape Town apartment on another winter’s day, six years after his invention, the 23-year-old UCT graduate was proud to say he had not bathed for three days.
Marishane has sold more than 258,000 sachets of his product which is produced and packaged in Somerset West, just outside Cape Town.
He had been running Headbody Industries Inc. as sole proprietor for the past five years until he found a partner this year. He acknowledges working alone was his biggest weakness. The ‘silent partner’ who merely goes by the name Lungile, walks in, drops off a few packages and quickly leaves. The partner wants to remain in the background.
“I didn’t have the advantages of having a team, someone to bounce ideas off and get things done really quickly. It’s really rare to actually find somebody like him. Too many people agree with me. Too many people get intimidated by me,” says Marishane.
It’s difficult to handle success, he says.
“Because you can find tons and tons of books that will tell you to work until 1AM in the morning, have the passion, push, drive etc. But there aren’t too many books that teach you how to handle it when the dream starts coming true,” he says.
There have been failures along the way. Earlier this year they launched the “NoBathing campaign” online, where they hoped to raise funds for the company and for charity. They asked people to pledge not to bath and donate funds that would sponsor DryBath sachets for people who needed them. The campaign failed and raised a mere $2,096, well short of the $500,000 target.
“I would say we are not social media guys, and we’ve never gone public with the product. We don’t sell retail. Our inexperience with the identity we’ve given the product is what made us have a mixed message with the campaign,” he admits.
But he won’t give up that easily and will re-introduce the programme again when the time is right.
And the future?
“Our plan is not to become the “DryBath” company for the next five to 10 years. The plan is to get the product out, get people using it and sell the brand off to one of the bigger players who have the distribution, who have the man-power to push behind it, allowing it to achieve its maximum social and profitability impact,” he says.
Headboy Industries Inc. also has three other projects in the pipeline that they are hoping will get off to a good start. In the next six months they will be piloting a development entrepreneurship platform for university students with Coronation, a fund management company.
For now, Marishane and his incognito partner are changing the way tens of thousands of people bath, without a drop of water in sight.

Wallowing In Money

It was early morning, the sun was blazing. Tommie van Zyl walks over to Wilson Mashola, one of the drivers at the farm, standing near the entrance of a warehouse, where thousands of tomatoes are being loaded onto a yellow truck. Tommie greets Mashola in his mother tongue, Khelobedu, the language of this part of Limpopo, in northern South Africa. The language is similar to northern-Sotho, seTswana and Tshivenda and it’s not easy to learn. The two hug and share a few jokes. Tommie turns to say that Mashola has been a driver on the family farm for 32 years.
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Tommie inherited this knack of communication from his father. In a country with 11 official languages, Tommie speaks three tongues of the people of Limpopo, as well as his mother tongue Afrikaans, and English. He’s a strange millionaire, dressed in a plain blue shirt, chinos and veldskoene—hardy shoes typically worn by South African farmers. At first glance you wouldn’t think Tommie is chief executive officer of this massive multi million rand tomato farm.
It was his choice, when he returned from studying in the States in 1986, to shun the khakis worn by many a farmer.
“I always ask what we can do to remain relevant. Some of them still wear it, but I felt in order to be one with the people, you need to change stereotypes about Afrikaans farmers,” he says.
Nestled in the valley of Mooketsi around 400km north of Johannesburg, the farm is the home of the ZZ2 brand. It’s famous across the continent for tomatoes—harvesting around 170,000 tons a year from 2,000 hectares (ha).
The name dates back to 1906 after the end of the war when farmers were compelled to get a registered number with which to brand their cattle. The authorities gave each of the van Zyl brothers a number from ZZ1 to ZZ4. ZZ2 was the brand of the second eldest brother Burt, grandfather to Bertie and great grandfather to Tommie—who used it as the trademark for what was to become the biggest tomato farm in the southern hemisphere.
Tommie’s father, Bertie, left school at 16 to take over the farm from his ailing father. In those days, the van Zyl’s had a mixed crop, mainly potatoes, and life was difficult. Bertie realized that his neighbor made more money from tomatoes than potatoes and convinced his father to change. The first crop was harvested four years later.
The climate in the Mooketsi valley was just right. Tomatoes flourished all year round and soon, the farm was rich. Over the years, the van Zyl’s diversified into avocados, onions, stone fruit and beef.
The company also has farms in Musina, Limpopo, near the border with Zimbabwe. They grow apples and pears in Ceres and Riebeek-West in the Western Cape as well as Langkloof in the Eastern Cape. Marketing manager Clive Garret says a new crop, is dates, farmed in Hakiesdoorn in the Karas region of southern Namibia. The company hopes to harvest their first crop of dates within the next year.
Bertus Venter, Production manager and agronomist at ZZ2, says dates are in high demand during the Islamic month of fasting, Ramadan, due to their high energy and nutritional properties. The climate in the southern hemisphere allows for the growing of fresh dates to be available during that holy month.
“As far as business growth is concerned, we’re constantly looking at how we should adapt our business. We benchmark ourselves against the best in the world and we will adapt our system to the well adapted to the environment we’re in. We’re firmly established in South Africa, but also where it makes economic sense in neighboring countries,” says Tommie.
It’s been a long road to the tomato millions for Tommie. While growing up, he started to learn the trade, though he says he didn’t walk into managing the company.
“I didn’t get the job because I was the son of the owner. My father was a very strict man and he didn’t want us to go to school.”
Bertie wanted Tommie to stop going to school after grade eight, but with the help of neighbors and uncles, he persuaded his father to allow him to study.
Tommie completed an undergraduate B.Comm degree in economics and agricultural economics at Stellenbosch University in the Western Cape. When he found he couldn’t play any other sport, he opted for boxing, gaining full sports colors while studying.
Following his completion of a postgraduate honors degree, he was awarded the Fulbright Scholarship to learn for a Master of Science in food and resource economics at the University of Florida, in the States. While there, he was also awarded membership to Gamma Sigma Delta, an international honor society dedicated to recognizing accomplishments of leaders in agriculture and the related sciences, at the very least he vindicated his neighbors and uncles.
On completion of his studies in 1986, Tommie returned to the family farm. He started off as a buying clerk in the purchasing office, expanding his responsibilities and started to farm a year later. At the age of 27, in 1992, he cut his teeth and became managing director for operations, property and investments.
“But we had a very interesting managing system. I had the title and the responsibility, but not necessarily at that time, the authority. I grew into authority and probably since 2001, we established proper governing structures that gave me full authority as chief executive officer, reporting to our board of directors, but since 1992, I had the title of chief executive officer,” he says.
The father of four took over the reins of the multi million rand conglomerate in 2005 after his father died. His son, Burtie, is following in the family footsteps, starting off as a junior project manager and coming through the ranks to his current position of general manager for the avocado plantations. One of Tommie’s twin daughters is studying genetics and horticulture and the other geography and environmental science; his eldest daughter is a jewelry designer.
When he is not farming, the 54-year-old enjoys reading books on philosophy, business and economics, and sometimes takes long walks through the countless rows of tomato fields.
The saying, never judge a book by its cover or a tomato by its skin, couldn’t be truer when Tommie suggests a helicopter flight over the farm. He jumps into the pilot seat and starts the rotor blades—a farmer of many talents. He obtained his private pilot’s license with night rating for an airplane and more recently a helicopter license. From the sky, the tomato and avocados look like neatly laid-out football fields.
From here, tomatoes are exported to Reunion, Dubai, Seychelles and Oman, while around 3,000 tons of avocados go to Europe. The rest of the produce is sold through the fresh markets in Johannesburg and Cape Town. Their biggest competitor is Azura in Morroco.
Around 20 trucks are on the road daily, transporting nearly 4,000 tons per week to a warehouse in Johannesburg, where they are divided and dispatched to various stores across the country, and to sellers. Tommie says hawkers are one of their biggest customers. They buy products cheaply in bulk and sell them on streets and small shops.
ZZ2 also has a commercial herd, consisting mainly of Pinzgauers, which roam on non-arable land, for the breeding of weaners on high-valued stud cattle. The farm is also involved in wildlife conservation with fenced conservancies measuring 23,721ha. The game includes white rhino, nyala, gemsbuck, red hartebeest, giraffe, impala, kudu, Burchell’s zebra and eland.
The livestock alone is worth R30 million ($3.3 million) and the game R8.5 million ($940,000).
In a time when many of the country’s mines are being lambasted of raking in huge profits at the expense of the people, ZZ2  built small villages for the workers and their families nearer to the farms.
Tommie says each farm has its own clinic as they are far away from the nearest hospital. They provide bus services for workers’ children to a nearby primary school and also support a farm school and 13 créche’s for around 300.
Each farm has its own vehicle workshop where the school buses and the trucks get serviced by professionals.
ZZ2 employs around 8,000 people in South Africa, of whom around 6,500 are based at the headquarters. The farm also employs people in neighboring countries from Zimbabwe and Mozambique, who carry out seasonal work.
With over 60,000ha—and counting—of farming land, ZZ2 turns over around R900,000 ($98,657) for tomatoes alone and nearly a R1.1 billion ($120 million) for the entire company. But the tomato farmer says this is humbling.
“When you think you’re king, you’re paw-paw, when you think you’re paw-paw, you’re king. I’m very intrigued by value in a broad sense. Money doesn’t really impress us. We’re impressed by the value of the things we produce and the meaning that we’re creating for many people,” says Tommie.
As the autumn sun sets over the farm, the workers pack their tools and dust off their boots, as one shift ends and a new one begins at the entrance of the warehouse. Looking far away over the horizon Tommie would like to employ more of them next year and expand the tomato business. In these recessionary times, there can be few businesses that can look at the sunset and say that.

$120 Million From The Red

How do you come back from this? You’ve lost the life savings of scores of poor people who trusted you; the company that was the key to your fortune has abandoned you; your dream of building a mining empire is in tatters and you are broke. What do you do? Go back to the office and go to sleep? Surely not. Tim Tebeila was used to hardship. He was born, the third of seven children, to a laborer in the remote village of Sekhukhune, in Limpopo, in the north of South Africa. From an early age, he walked barefoot through the mountains to school—15 kilometers each way.
“It was very tough. In winter you had to wake up at four o’clock andevery day you were still late. I was lashed for being late every day for two years,” says Tebeila. As he grew up, Tebeila hustled a living selling apples on the streets. “I think entrepreneurs are born, they are not made. It is a talent, like being a soccer player, but you have to nurture that talent.” To make his life even more complicated, Tebeila was drawn into politics and became one of the leaders in the South African Youth Congress. At nights, often he would sleep in the mountains near his home to avoid arrest.
At the dawn of democracy in South Africa, in 1994, Tebeila decided to quit his job to chase his dream of becoming a mining magnate and set up a company, Sekoko Resources. In those days there were very few black entrepreneurs in mining. “My dream was always to own a mine. My dream was to build a conglomerate similar to that of Anglo American. My belief was very simple; when the Oppenheimer family startedAnglo American they started the same way I did. Not by buying other companies, but getting their ownrights and developing them.”
Getting these mining rights proved a nightmare a million miles from the dream. Tebeila was turned down 10 times, and every time he rolled onto the couch in his Polokwane o­ffice and wept. In 2002, he used his last R100,000 ($13,500) to pay consultants in pursuit of yet another mining right. He found out too late that the money was non-refundable and ended up losing both the rights and the cash.
In 2004, he identified the asset he felt could make his fortune and prayed for better luck. Soutpansberg was an estimated 200 million tons of metallurgical coal, under 11 farms, covering 8,000 hectares, near Mussina on his home soil of Limpopo. On April 19, 2005, the government granted Tebeila a license for the site and he was set to chance his arm with consultants yet again. The bigger problem was that Tebeila did not have any money left to explore and the banks were refusing to lend. He needed R1.5 million ($195,000) for exploration and struck on the idea—as was fashionable in latter years of black economic empowerment—of gathering the money from the people who lived in the villages near where he grew up.
So on a crisp winter’s morning near Bela Bela, in the heart of the country’s northern Waterberg coalfields, hundreds of curious villagers gathered to hear what their brother planned to do in return for their life savings. “I remember it was a very cold day and I had a stomach problem… There were many people there that day, old people, disabled people and even chiefs from the community. I told them I needed their money and could make them all rich,” says Tebeila.
The next day, a blind woman shuffled into Tebeila’s offi­ce and handed over R15,000 ($1,950) in cash—her life savings. “This touched me a lot and it showed belief in the project. The chiefs followed and they represented the community. My feeling was at least we have got people who are backing my dreams and people who believe in my dreams. After all the long stress of turned down applications, this was going to be it.” Full of hope, Tebeila paid R600,000 ($78,000) to a firm of geological consultants and R900,000 ($117,250) to drillers to explore for coal at Soutpansberg. Little did Tebeila know that his worst day—like the coal itself—was lurking just beneath the surface.
The alarm bells started ringing when Tebeila spent weeks chasing up the paperwork from the consultants. To his horror, he found out that the consulting firm—which had been riven by strife—had dissolved almost overnight. To make matters worse, the geologist had fled to Australia with the exploration report under his arm. It meant Tebeila was mired in a project without information, money or hope; where he was landed with being the geologist, lawyer, environmentalist and engineer of a “I couldn’t phone a blind person, who had given her last money, to tell her that I had lost everything.”
“I felt I was down and I would notwake up. I felt really bad. This was my second loss. I got that money out of struggle and it had gone. I was very down, but I never thought of quitting. Every time I had hardship, I always went and slept in my office. I went back and slept on my couch. I slept for four hours. I do this because it is both meditation and praying for an answer. I woke up with the solution.”
The answer lay in a laboratory in nearby Witbank. Because Tebeila was hands-on during the exploration he knew the laboratory used by the consultants and the people who worked there. He sped to Witbank, more in hope than expectation.
In Witbank, lady luck at last cracked a smile on the Soutpansberg coal project. The laboratory was able to salvage two pages of exploration data for Tebeila. Luckily, the two pages contained the all-important drilling data. A lifeline for the coal mine; for Tebeila these flimsy pages were manna from heaven.
The struggle was far from over. Tebeila spent five months trying to sell the idea of a coal mine with his two pages in hand. There was a glimmer of hope when the Brazilian resources giant, Vale—the driving force behind Mozambique’s mighty Moatize coal project—showed interest, but there was a language barrier. Vale needed to send the proposals to Brazil for translation into Portuguese, but this was going to take months and Tebeila neither had the time nor the money.
<h3>What did he learn?</h3>
“I think I have learned the art of perseverance and how it works. I learned to persevere no matter what. I learned to stick to my dreams. I want to build a new Anglo American and I am doing that.”
At last, the sun broke through the clouds for Soutpansberg. Tebeila got a phone call, while he was driving, from Coal of Africa— an established player in the South African industry.
“Coal of Africa made me an off­er to purchase 74% of the assets for R70 million ($9.1 million). They also pledged to spending R100 million ($13 million) to take the project to a bankable feasibility study. “It’s the biggest deal I have ever closed on a cellphone while I was driving. The following day, they signed. Two years later, they o­ffered me R20 million ($2.6 million) for the remaining 26% and gave me the capital to finance my present project, Waterburg Colliery, which will mine up to 15 million tons of coal-a-year by 2019.” Sekoko Resources survived it all, diversified into iron ore, and is set to reach turnover of R10 billion a year ($1.3 billion) by 2019. And what of the people who handed over their last bundles of cash way back in 2005? “They got their dividends. They got all their money back and they made 300% back on what they gave. Some built houses out of that money. I felt very proud,” says Tebeila. So, coal’s well that ends well.

Tag: Limpopo

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