Architect of bright future
Mom’s freak accident couldn’t derail determined student from her designs on success
A FREAK accident in which her mother lost her legs in a train accident wasn’t enough to derail a Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) student from her dreams of obtaining a qualification in architectural technology.
The tragedy had an unexpected silver lining after she ended up starting a small business based on cowhide accessories which took her to the US on a scholarship tour.
Nomakhosazana Ncube, or Zana as her friends call her, has had an extralong and bumpy road to the CPUT summer graduation stage.
She struggled daily to complete assignments because of rolling blackouts in Zimbabwe, where she was completing the Open Architecture course via correspondence.
To complete online critique sessions she was forced to connect a power cable from her car battery to her laptop and work from her vehicle’s back seat.
Lecturers also made special allowances for Zana, and other Zimbabwean students, by scheduling critique sessions for around midnight because the power usually kicked in for a few hours between 11pm and 4am.
“There you are, at 2am, sitting on your car back seat, occasionally running your battery so it won’t go flat.
“You think maybe this is the universe telling you that this isn’t for you,” said Zana.
“But then you look at how far you have come and you keep going.”
Unfortunately, her mother was involved in a near-fatal train accident in Victoria Falls last year when she fell under a train and severed both of her legs.
“I remember that dreaded next-ofkin call. In a flash I went from excitedly waiting for mid-year block assessments to wondering if my mother would be a corpse,” added Zana.
After a three-month hospital stay, Zana’s mother was discharged and she dedicated herself exclusively to her care giving. Eventually she was forced to make the difficult decision to defer her studies until her mother had fully recovered.
The unexpected spare time frustrated Zana and she soon found a creative outlet that would allow her to stay home with her mother while also earning a living. She founded “A Tribe Called Zimbabwe”, which is a range of fashion items based on Zimbabweans’ love for Nguni cattle.
“The goal of the company was to celebrate the rich history and culture of Zimbabweans and showcase our fashion identity,” she said.
“I would wheel my mother into the dining room to watch me work on the cow horns and hide and it gave us something else to talk about other than pain and hospital visits.”
Zana was later chosen for a Visitor Leadership Programme for Women in Entrepreneurship and went to the US in December last year.
The networking programme was a life-changing experience and exposed A Tribe Called Zimbabwe to an international audience. Zana resumed her studies and was now on track to graduate with her classmates.
Today her mother, Judith Maposa, has recovered enough to travel to South Africa and will see her daughter graduate next week.
“She is such a strong character. It wasn’t easy to watch your mother nearly die and soldier on. I told her if my life is over, then hers has to go on and I am so proud that, despite everything, she went through she pulled through,” said Maposa.