Mum’s catering certificate was beautifully framed and hung on the top wall at the entrance of our living room. I always woke up to the smell of fresh butter and flour at home. There were always bags of flour, margarine, oil, lots of vegetables, and canned beef in our kitchen pantry/store room.
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Growing up, my mum made the most delicious meat pie in the whole of the Volta Barracks. She was probably the only one who made and sold meat pie on a large scale for commercial purposes in the barracks back then. Now that I think of it, I believe she had no competition.
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She had apprentices who would undergo training and then “serve her” by selling the meat pies in siefs (the containers in which the meat pies were sold) in town and around the neighbourhood. These apprentices: Sister Kwakyewaa, Abena, Rose, Lizzy, Bala, Mary, among others whose names I can’t remember, would eventually become like sisters. My mum oriented my sisters and me to treat them as such because it’s only human to be human to a fellow human.
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They would usually be awake by the time I woke up to do my morning chores, mostly sweeping and cleaning. These young ladies in their late teens and early twenties would already be kneading the meat pie dough and getting the pies ready for the day’s sales.
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There was always meat pie at home. My sisters and I almost always had meat pie with tea or mmore/mmole kooko (corn dough porridge) for breakfast before going to school. Mum eventually added other pastries like rock buns (Rockies) and doughnuts to her meat pie business. She even made abele walls (Ghanaian milk popsicles) and other local drinks like sobolo and asaana to go with them.
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Aside pastries, mum’s meals always tasted magnificent, almost like restaurant-style food. Need I not boast that most of the street foods sold on a commercial basis, like waakye, kenkey, and Hausa kooko, were made from scratch in my household.
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I can boldly say that most of my mother’s wealth came from the sale of meat pie and her other pastries. She built a successful business for herself.
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At the end of each day, she would count her money and divide it into different boxes or compartments. One time, I may have overheard her say that each box was for a major ingredient used in her baking business; one for flour, one for oil, one for margarine, and so on. I was young, but I could tell she also had a box for her personal savings, one for emergencies, one for upkeep, fees and bills, and one for herself and her enjoyment.
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Looking back now, I realise that I was unconsciously learning business and financial skills from my mum.
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At ages 8–12, I was already making money from my writing. I wrote short stories and poems that my classmates wanted to read. Oh, and I sure did not let them read for free. After all, it cost me my upkeep or lunch money to buy my stationery; plain sheets, pens, pencils, and crayons – to bring my stories and poems to life.
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Within a short period of time, I started giving my mum money every day after school to keep for me. She asked where I was getting the extra money from because she knew my upkeep money wouldn’t be enough to cover what I was giving her.
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When I told her about my stories and poem-reading sales, her smile was bright and a grin at the same time. She told my dad, and they looked through my school bag and found my poems and stories. My dad enjoyed reading them the most. He always looked forward to reading them anytime I came home from school.
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Mum used the container of an old air freshener as my savings (susu) box. She was always smiling anytime I gave her money at the end of the school day.
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I remember using my savings for something valuable at the end of the school term (semester). I just can’t remember clearly what it was.
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My mum built her wealth from “nsaanoadwuma” (skill learned with the body or hand). In her case, by cooking and selling food. She and my dad probably never thought that I would grow up to utilise my God-given “nsaanoadwuma” (singing and writing) to build my own wealth.
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Today, I earn a reasonable and stable income from singing and writing; not necessarily by choice, but by gut, instinct, and life’s occurrences.
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Whenever I think about that beautifully framed catering certificate that hung at the entrance of our living room, I realise it represented much more than a qualification. It represented a woman who built a life, a business, and unknowingly raised another entrepreneur.
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When I think about my financial
literacy, entrepreneurship, and the courage to build something with my own hands, my mind always goes back to my mother, the most industrious woman I’ve ever known, and her famous meat pie.
