The Gambian Lemonade Stand

Written on February 18th, 2010

So I just got back from walking around Kerr Jarga with Mberry and Menghe selling "naan mbourou"--"drinking bread." Which is pounded rice, baobab juice, sugar and milk in a drinkable bag. It was ironic to me how the entrepreneurial spirit of kids here is much the same as that of kids in the US who set up a lemonade stand on their street corner. But this desire for lemonade stand businesses doesn't end for people here at high school and in many cases it justs gets more intricate.
But first I think its important to talk about the variety of things kids sell. "Naan mbourou" is one but panketos (donut holes), ebee (cassava, lemon, palm oil etc.) stew, salted peanuts, icees, fish pies etc. The list goes on and I think the most interesting thing is the intricacy of the dishes. It is way more than what a twelve year old in the US could produce. Beyond these things the women here will also sell "small things" for making lunch like salt, pepper, Jumbo (a MSG seasoning cube), tomato paste, oil etc. But for all their entrepreneurial ambitions its rare for them to have any sense of making a profit, inputs and outputs. Today when Mbayang was making "naan mbourou" she asked me to loan her D20. I asked her how much she thought she would make and she wasn't sure she would even make back the D20 she wanted me to loan her. I ended up loaning her D10 and total she spent D40 to produce the 41 bags that she sells for D1--so she is going to make one dalasi in profit. Even though shes an intelligent girl she could not really understand that she needed to come up with a way to get a greater return for her efforts. This makes me wonder if the illiterate women who sell "small small things" for making lunch ever make any money or if their just recycling their inputs over and over again without any personal gain.