Stall a great family business
FOR more than two decades, Joanne Kisten and her husband, Manson, have been trading outside the RK Khan Hospital in Chatsworth, selling fruit, vegetables, pickles and fried nuts.
The Westcliff couple’s small business helps them pay their bond, put their 12-year-old daughter through school and finance their 21-year-old son’s tertiary education.
Come rain or sunshine, Kisten, 45, is at her stall from 7am to greet her customers with a friendly smile.
When she and her husband married 25 years ago, she worked as a dental assistant and her now 45-year-old husband was employed at Natal Portland Cements.
“My mother-in-law started trading outside RK Khan Hospital and about 23 years ago, just after we got married, she handed down the business to my husband and I. We had just bought our house and we both left our jobs to run the stall,” she explained.
Kisten said her husband bought the fruit and vegetables from the Clairwood Market almost every morning, while she made the pickle and fried nuts.
“I trade from 7am until 5.30pm. When I go home, the work does not stop. I have to make a fresh batch of pickle and fried nuts for the next day. In order to supplement our business, my husband also runs a tuck shop from home.”
To run her stall, Kisten pays a fee of R900 a year to the eThekwini Municipality and, through the business, she has also created jobs by employing two people to assist them.
“One worker helps me at the stall and the other is at home, either assisting with the tuckshop or helping me make the pickles and fried nuts. Our business, although small, is helping to pay our bond, put my son through college and daughter through school.”