Need a Hug? — My ChaleWote Story

I’ve been blogging Chopbox Life full-time for almost 2 months now, haven’t I? Let’s talk about something different today. Let’s talk about ChaleWote, Ghana’s most popular street art festival. But first, MEST.
A few weeks ago I got into MEST. “What is MEST?” you ask. MEST is the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology. This link will tell you a lot more about MEST, and it really is worth reading, especially if you are interested in learning more about technology entrepreneurship.
For my “TL;DR” folks, I gotchu: MEST is a school where about 60 young people (Entrepreneurs-in-Training — EIT’s) from across Africa (12 nations this year) are chosen to be trained for a year to build successful tech companies in Africa. At the end of the year we pitch ideas for seed funding anywhere from $50,000 to $200,000.
Don’t let the money confuse you. And for those people who will suddenly “miss” me and text me to “check” on me… hehehe. Abi I no talk anything. I’ll write a better blog post on what I’m doing at MEST later.
Bet, Buy, Barter
So as part of our introduction to business and the art of hustling, there was this program introduced at MEST called “Bet, Buy, Barter” or BBB. What happens during BBB is that we are divided into teams, typically consisting of 3 or 4 members, and each team is given ₵GH20 as starting capital to multiply over a few days (2 or 3), with ChaleWote as a test market. Of course, you don’t have to go to the festival, but when over 80% of your cohort does not come from Ghana, you know you’ll find yourself at ChaleWote… trying to bring out the hustler in you.
Of course I was excited! I’d always wanted to attend ChaleWote, but somehow, for the past 4 or 5 years, I was always in Kumasi by the time ChaleWote was in session. This was my chance. Plus I had some really cool stuff to sell to all the tourists to take back to their countries. My team (me, Ropah — a Zimbabwean, and Moses — a Nigerian) was ecstatic! We were gonna be so rich!!
ChaleWote
So that’s how I ended up at ChaleWote, trying to sell beads, and pendants, and necklaces, and keychains…
Notice the word “trying”? Yup! You guessed it. I sucked at sales, man. From like 10am till about 3:30pm, I’d sold 2 beads. 1–2. 2 beads!!!. And I’d sold them to people who knew me that I’d ran into. Talk about a tough market.
Has anyone ever told you tourists are interested in our culture, and want to buy keepsakes to remember their visits, blah blah blah before? Well, they lied… or maybe not the tourists of 2018. They don’t want anything like that, except fun experiences and pictures! Necklace?? It better be cheap. Key-chain?? Already got one. Beads?? I’ll pass. It’s actually worse for you when you don’t have a stand and you have to walk up to people like those guys at Kantamanto.
By 3:30pm, with 2 beads to my name, I felt dejected. My team members went off to try some new ideas elsewhere, and I just sat down in front of the Bible Society bookshop and moped. After what seemed like a leap-year, Samira, another EIT came to sit beside me. She’d arrived late to ChaleWote… you get to come late when you have your own car. (Yeah, I said it… Sami, I’m in my room, come and beat me.)
Anyway, she’d arrived late (with 2 slates and chalk) and wasn’t sure where to start, because the day before… get this, she had been selling hugs. No kidding… she sold 1 hug for 1 cedi and made ₵GH20. The day before, we’d made popcorn (with milk!!!), and we got just ₵GH4.
Side-note: I can make popcorn from scratch now. Clap for me. 👏👏👏
So there we were, seemingly purposeless entrepreneurs-in-training, when I offered her a hug… for free… not really because she wanted one, but because sad ol’ KayO needed one. Then I asked another lady beside me, “Hey, would you want a hug for 1 cedi?” Her reply, “From you?”
Hol’ it, hol’ it, the story is not over, don’t laugh at, or cry for me just just. But ladies and gentlemen, I couldn’t think far. Adɛn, wo twa me hug aa ɛnyɛ yie? Am I not huggable? But maybe it was because she was short… apparently, hugging a tall man can be a bit of work, and “intimidating” (whatever that means). Remember this image?

Anyway, so Sami jumped in at this point, “What about me?”, to which the girl replied, “Yeah, I’ll give you 1 cedi for a hug”. You won’t appreciate 1 cedi till it becomes a source of hope. We were ecstatic… and yet shy… but excited nonetheless. It was time for a partnership, because although I’m technically not as huggable as Sami, she needed the moral support to hold a slate advertising hugs by the roadside, and I was the only other MESTer ready crazy enough to join this venture. So we brought out the slates, wrote out the words, “NEED A HUG?” and stood boldly by the side of the road.

All kinds of people walked up to us. I mean AAAAAAAALL kinds of people. And most of them wanted free hugs. After about 5 explanations, we added one line at the bottom, “for Charity”, because it had been decided that we would use a part of the profits to replace some items of fellow EIT’s that got stolen the previous week. Of course, some people didn’t read, but a few did, and gave more than 1 cedi for a hug.
After a while, one of our MEST teaching fellows came to help out. He’s called Felix. This guy is pretty much eye-candy for ladies — no homo. Fair (half-cast fair, no bleaching), full beard, blah blah blah. I watched him rake in ₵GH20 for a single hug and immediately learnt an important lesson: packaging matters! 😂😂😂 I’m so going to grow my beard… or at least, try.
I could go on and on about the event that was going on around me, but this post is getting long.
Let me end by rendering accounts. We made over ₵GH200 ($40) from hugs alone, which, of course, had to be split between my team and Sami’s. The hustler in me was pleased. My team went on to make over ₵GH300 at the end of the BBB challenge from various ventures. The lessons are simple: necessity is the mother of invention; and anything you put your mind to, you can get done. Giving up is not an option.
Failure will cease to exist when people lose their sense of entitlement… any subconscious belief that society owes us success.
You only truly fail when you stop trying. If I could hug the whole ChaleWote (yeah, yeah, I’m exaggerating) for a cedi, imagine what you could do to make your dreams a reality.
I’ll be back to tell you more about MEST life from my point of view as an Entrepreneur-in-Training.
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✌😎KayO
PS. To my non-Ghanaian readers, the Ghana Cedi (₵GH) is the official currency of Ghana. At the time of writing this, ₵GH4.72 is equal to $1.00.
Originally published at KayO’s Blog.
