How To Build A Multi Million Dollar Online Business In Nigeria

I was chatting with a colleague, as we drove to Jumia’s Lagos corporate office, when he asked rhetorically: “Why would JP Morgan be so interested in a 5 month old Nigerian startup as to invest millions in it?” Well, I was eager to know too.

Africa, home to six of the world’s fastest growing economies, has caught the entrepreneurial bug but an ubiquitous lack of funds has kept its entrepreneurs from marching. Minutes into meeting Jumia co-founder Tunde Kehinde, he would have me know having an amazing powerpoint business plan isn’t the key to investor funds.

“With the little crowd funding you can get, test your business concept and prove it makes money,” he tells me. “That way you become irresistible for investors.”

His partner, Raphael Afaedor chips in: “We had to quit our jobs and put all our effort in what we believed. Often, working 16 hours a day, sometimes more.”

Raphael was laid back, but spoke with rare speed. Spitting an average of 3 words per second, he would give Eminem a run for his money. His business-like countenance, tucked-in white office shirt and black trousers, made him look like the boss at the Jumia office.

Tunde on the other hand, with the rest of the Jumia team appeared youthful and casual.

At the online retailer’s office, dozens of under-30 year olds carrying Jumia tags could be seen in jeans and sneakers or fashionable clothing. Self expression is uninhibited, ideas are encouraged. It’s the kind of place a millennial would love to work. It isn’t the conventional Nigerian work setting – for a second, I thought I was in some sort of Google workspace.

Hanging on the walls at the lobby are two aluminium frames. One reads: “Best People for the Best Team.” The other, a sort of guideline for interaction between the staff, reads: “Challenge ideas but 

Respect everyone.”

When Raphael and Tunde first conceived the idea of building an enduring online ‘shopping mall’ for the Nigerian market, they had never met. Raphael was Head of Marketing and Sales (West, Central & North Africa) with Notore Chemical Industries while Tunde Kehinde was in the UK assisting alcoholic beverage multinational Diageo, to acquire valuable African brands. Both had also studied at Harvard Business School (and Tunde had tried his hands on Bandeka.com, a dating site for young African professionals) so they had received some training for their impending entrepreneurial pursuit.

Word got around about two guys talking about e-commerce opportunities in Nigeria and by a stroke of fate they met through a mutual contact. 10 days later, the pair started building their first general merchandise store; only this time, the store was to be online. The name was Kasuwa. The strategy was simple – boycott difficulties associated with shopping at the mall – traffic, long queues, stress, time constraint – by providing a user friendly online store with competitive prices, thereby making shopping convenient.

“Why wait till weekend before going to the mall when you can shop at the press of a button and have your purchase delivered to your doorstep?” Tunde wore a wide grin as he made the statement.

The business of delivering electronics, computers, fashionable items, et al across Nigeria’s 36 states is not an easy task. The boys had to quit their jobs and take a risk. Little did they know Rocket Internet, a german internet Venture Capital was seeking opportunities in Nigeria. Like the American billionaire Paul Getty who struck oil at an early age, the young men had struck gold. Rocket Internet, also owners of South Africa’s leading fashion online retailer Zando, met the duo and decided to invest in Kasuwa. June 2012, Kasuwa.com was officially launched.

“It’s not just getting money that matters,” Tunde explains. “Get smart money.”

“Investors that can add value to you, open doors and help you network, will help you run faster against competition.”

Not only does Rocket Internet funds Kasuwa, the group also shares with Raphael and Tunde its network, expertise and vast experience operating e-commerce, including a billion dollar business, in several continents.

An introduction of the German group on its website reads: “Rocket is much more than a venture capital firm or an incubator. We bring together all key elements required to create great companies: team, concept, technology, and capital.”

It’s one thing to have all that support though, it’s another to understand the market and rightly execute market entry strategy in a peculiar one like Nigeria. The first four months were really rough for Kasuwa. Just two months after launch, reports of a brand name change from Kasuwa to Jumia “due to legal issues” filled the online media. Subsequently in September, Jumia and Sabunta – a Nigerian online fashion store, also supported by Rocket Internet – downsized and merged, shedding off around 50 employees, some earning as much as 6.5 million naira ($41,000) per annum.

Raphael says, “the name Kasuwa wasn’t catchy. We wanted a name that could sell, even in other African countries.”

And Jumia sold. With a workforce of less than a hundred, a 12,000 sqft warehouse, omnipresent Google ads, effective marketing campaigns, and countless overtimes, the new brand quickly gained wide acceptance, recording about 40,000 site visits daily – more than Amazon’s site visits from Nigeria – and receiving orders from every state in the country. “The early acceptance surpassed our expectations. We emerged 7th most trafficked site in Nigeria, the number one player in the country’s ecommerce space, and the business was profitable,” Raphael says with a hint of excitement.

It was only natural for J.P. Morgan Asset Management to grab some equity in the company. As hard as I pressed, Tunde wouldn’t disclose the amount of the JP Morgan investment but he was kind enough to tell the cash was “significant enough” for him to feel “very confident about growing the business to a really really large scalable platform for a long time.”

Analytics of top internet searches and inquiries (for products) from Nigeria informs the decision of which category and product is sold on Jumia. Now, the online store gets 70,000 visitors daily. A March statistics report by global web information company Alexa, says roughly 34 percent of visitors to the site are one page views. The remaining 66 percent of visitors spend an average of over 9 minutes per visit. If a-tenth of this group purchases an item (comprising mostly of electronics, mobile phones, fashion items) and Jumia makes a meagre $7 on each sale (the retailer receives products on wholesale), it is safe to assume the company generates $32,340 daily, approximately a million dollars per month.

“Our staff has grown to over 300 and we are expanding into a 66,000 sqft warehouse, only 4 months after we moved into our current 12,000 sqft warehouse,” Raphael discloses.

With Nigeria’s middle class growing tremendously, and consumer buying on the rise, Jumia’s investors seems to have struck another goldmine of the Nigerian economy.

Tunde says: “We don’t want to just make profit. We don’t want to be here just a few years. We want to establish something enduring, help develop e-commerce in Nigeria and provide that talented fashion designer with no shop, a platform to sell across Nigeria.”

www.ventures-africa.com

The Richest Black Woman In The World, Folorunsho Alakija

Meet Folorunsho Alakija, a Nigerian billionaire oil tycoon, Fashion designer and philanthropist who is worth at least $3.3 billion- contrary to a recent Forbes Magazine ranking whichpegs her net worth at only $600 million.

Alakija, 61, was born into a wealthy, polygamous Nigerian family. She started out her professional career in the mid 70s as a secretary at the now defunct International Merchant Bank of Nigeria, one of the country’s earliest investment banks. In the early 80s, Alakija quit her job and went on to study Fashion design in England, returning to Nigeria shortly afterwards to start Supreme Stitches, a premium Nigerian fashion label which catered exclusively to upscale clientele.

The business thrived, and Alakija quickly made a tidy fortune selling high-end Nigerian clothing to fashionable wives of military bigwigs and society women.

Folorunsho Alakija – Oil Prospecting License

In May 1993 Alakija applied for an allocation of an Oil Prospecting License (OPL). The license to explore for oil on a 617,000 acre block – (now referred to as OPL 216) was granted to Alakija’s company, Famfa Limited. The block is located approximately 220 miles South East of Lagos and 70 miles offshore Nigeria in the central Niger Delta.

This was in 1993. Many wealthy Nigerian businessmen and military bigwigs who had been allocated oil blocs by the military administration at the time had no clue as to the technicalities in operating an oil block, so many of them typically acquired OPLs, and then flipped them off to international oil companies for substantial profits.

But Alakija was intelligent. She had no expertise or experience in running an oil field, but she decided not to sell off her license. In September 1996, she entered into a joint venture agreement with Star Deep Water Petroleum Limited (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Texaco) and appointed the company as a technical adviser for the exploration of the license, transferring 40 percent of her 100 percent stake to Star Deep. Subsequently, Star Deep sold off 8 percent of its stake in OPL 216 to Petrobas, a Brazilian company. Folorunsho Alakija and her family owned 60 percent.

Folorunsho Alakija and the Nigerian Government

Star Deep Petroleum carried on with exploitation of the oil field. In 2000, the first appraisal well was confirmed to have recoverable reserves in excess of 1 billion barrels of oil equivalent. When this was discovered, the Nigerian government, led by Olusegun Obasanjo immediately ordered that a 40 percent interest in OPL 216 be allocated to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) under the Back-in-Right Regulation of 2003 which gives the Nigerian government participatory rights in any OPL or OML. You can read more about this back-in-right regulation in detail here.

This would leave Famfa Oil with a 20 percent stake. This was in 2000, and the government did not pay Famfa a dime for the stake. In 2003, Famfa applied for a conversion from an OPL to an OML, and in 2004 the request was granted. OPL 216 became OML 127.
But the Nigerian government was not content with its 40 percent stake in Famfa. In 2005, the government led by General Olusegun Obasanjo forcefully acquired a further 10 percent stake in OML 127.

Folorunsho Alakija immediately went to the courts to challenge the government’s forceful acquisition take a 50 percent in the license. It was a lengthy court battle which lasted for several years, but in May 2012, the Supreme Court voided the government’s acquisition of a 50 percent stake in OML 127 and subsequently transferred the 50 percent stake back to Famfa Oil. (Read about Famfa’s victoryhere).

The Nigerian government tried to appeal the Supreme’s court decision, but the case has been dismissed- a victory for Famfa Oil which sees the little-known oil company owning a 60 percent in OML 127, which is one of Nigeria’s most prolific oil blocks.

Valuation Of OML 127

Daily production at OML 127 currently stands at 200,000 barrels per day. When the Nigerian government, through its wholly-owned petroleum company, NNPC, was trying to justify its forceful acquisition of a 50 percent stake in OML 127 at the Supreme court, the Government admitted that if Famfa Oil owned a 60 percent stake in the OML, the company stood to earn $10 million on a daily basis (after taxes and other exploration costs have been settled). The government’s argument at the Supreme Court can be found through this link, (item number 23).

So how much is a 60 percent stake in OML 127 worth?

Comparator: In July 2012, Royal Dutch Shell agreed to sell its 45 percent stake in OML 30 for $850 million to Heritage Oil and Shoreline Energy.

According to Fool.co.uk, OML 30 currently produces 35,000 barrels of oil per day.

So, if 45 percent of a 35,000 bpd-producing oil bloc is $850 million, 100 percent of the same bloc = $1.88 billion i.e 100/45 x $850 million

If a 100 percent stake in a 35,000 bpd-producing oil bloc is $1.88 billion, by the same logic, a 100 percent stake in 200,000 bpd-producing oil bloc is worth $10.74 billion i.e 200,000 bpd/35,000 bpd X $1.88 billion

Folorunsho Alakija’s 60 percent stake in a $10.74 billion oil well is worth $6.44 billion.

Technically, her 60 percent stake in OML 127 is worth $6.44 billion.

Another comparator: In November 2012, French oil group Total announced that it was selling a 20 percent stake in its Nigerian offshore oil field to China’s Sinopec in a $2.5 billion deal. The block in question, OML 138 is a 180,000 bpd facility.

So, if a 20 percent stake in an 180,000 bpd facility offshore block is worth $2.5 billion, the entire block is worth $12.5 billion i.e 100/20 x $2.5 billion. Since a 180,000 bpd-producing facility is worth $12.5 billion, a 200,000 bpd-producing facility is worth $13.8 billion because 200,000/180,000 x $12.5 billion.

Using the Total-Sinopec deal as the yardstick, we could also value OML 127 at $13.8 billion. In that case, her 60 percent stake would be worth $8.3 billion.

But to be conservative, we prefer to go with the lower valuation of $6.44 billion.

On Debt
Ventures Africa reached out to Famfa Limited to comment, but the company declined to divulge any information regarding any long-term or short-term debt. We have no idea on how much debt (if any, the company has), but even if we take the high side, and subtract 50 percent of the value of her stake for debt, that still gives her 60 percent stake in OML 127 a market value of $3.2 billion, which makes her richer than the $2.7 billion Oprah Winfrey is worth according to Forbes Magazine’s last rankings.

Folorunsho Alakija -Real Estate: $100 million

Folorunsho Alakija also has a real estate portfolio worth over $100 million. Earlier this year, Nigerian and British media announced that Alakija acquired a property at One Hyde Park for $102 million. See media coverage here and here

A source at Famfa Oil who asked for anonymity indeed confirmed that Mrs. Alakija actually acquired the property at One Hyde Park.

Folorunsho Alakija’s Private Jet

Alakija owns a Bombardier Global Express 6000 which she bought earlier this year for a reported $46 million.

Folorunsho Alakija and Philanthropy

Folorunsho Alakija is the founder of the Rose of Sharon foundation, a Christian-based charity which gives out small grants to widows. Find out more here.

Folorunsho Alakija and Family

Alakija is married to Modupe Alakija and they have four grown-up sons together. She also has a grandchild from her first son. Modupe Alakija, her husband is the Chairman of Famfa Oil. Her sons run the company.

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Finance, Fashion, Philanthropy: Folorunsho Alakija, FAMFA Oil

What do banking, fashion and oil have in common? If you guessed Nigeria’s 61-year old billionaire businesswoman Folorunsho Alakija, you are right!

Having entered and conquered each industry, Mrs Folorunsho Alakija is a role model and inspiration for any African businesswoman. Her tale is that of hard work, maximised opportunities and passions followed.

Alakija was born into a wealthy, polygamous home; her father had 8 wives and 52 children in his lifetime. Although she knew that somehow, Baba, as Mr Alakija was fondly called, loved all his children and wanted them around, Alakija sometimes felt singled out of the 52 for discipline. Regardless, she fondly remembers her childhood days, particularly her parents’ investment in the education and cultural upbringing that shaped her into the entrepreneur that she is.

Alakija’s business and fashion sense developed at a very young age from days spent with her fabric merchant mother. Young Folorunsho spent many days with her mother learning how to market fabrics to Nigerian women. At just 7 years old, her parents decided to give her and sister, Doyin, an international education, sending them off to a private girls’ boarding school in Northern Wales where they were the only black people. Folorunsho and Doyin eventually adapted to their new life becoming Flo and Doy, monikers given by their English friends. After four years abroad, they returned to Nigeria where she finished her secondary schooling and entered the corporate world as a bank secretary at Nigeria’s International Merchant Bank.

Alakija quickly moved up the corporate ladder; with her creativity and organisational skills, she became the bank’s first Head of Corporate Affairs. She excelled in this position and two years later moved on to a finance role in the bank’s treasury department. Alakija contemplated starting her own business in the fashion industry and after some research, she went back to England for a course in fashion design, fulfilling a lifelong desire to return to that part of her childhood. On returning to Nigeria in 1985, Alakija began what became an award-winning, pioneer fashion institution, Supreme Stitches, from a 3-Bedroom apartment in Lagos. One year later, she emerged as the nation’s best designer and a household name, catering to many society women.

As the 1990s arrived, Alakija decided to branch out and invest in oil, the chief source of Nigeria’s wealth. Once again, she succeeded, creating FAMFA Oil Limited, a family-run oil and gas exploration and production company. FAMFA acquired an oil bloc where oil was struck in commercial quantities, bringing more wealth to Alakija’s business which her husband and four sons are still involved in running.

Alakija has since turned to the next natural step of a successful businesswoman: giving back to her community. She is a popular philanthropist who takes up the cause of the defenceless in Nigerian society, widowed women, young and orphaned children. Alakija recognised that for many women in parts of Nigeria:

“Once they lose their husbands, the society turns their backs on them, their in-laws begin to mistreat them, they become depressed, they don’t know where to turn, they don’t know where their next meal is coming from.”

She created the Rose of Sharon Foundation in 2008, with the support of 350 illustrious men and women to ease the burdens of this vulnerable group. Three years after starting, Rose of Sharon had empowered 2,760 widows, providing them with workshops to connect with other widows and share their testimonies. These women also received monetary support, scholarships for their children and interest free loans to start up small businesses. In the words of young Uchechi who lost her husband to stroke in 2010, “I cried my eyes sore, asking God where and how I would continue not knowing that there was a ray of hope in Rose of Sharon Foundation which gave my three children scholarship and also empowered me to start a trade”. Folorunsho Alakija believes there is no greater reward for her faith and hard work than to see the smiles and successes of these women who ‘simply need a shoulder to lean on’.

Metaphorically speaking, Mrs Alakija has very broad shoulders. Well done to Folorunsho Alakija’s Rose of Sharon Foundation, where female entrepreneurs are nurtured.

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What does Nigerian online retailer, Konga.com, have in common with Africa’s largest media company?

At 10, Nigerian-born Sim Shagaya began writing computer codes. At Christmas, he would program his basic computer, run syntaxes, and connect it to a TV set to display ‘Merry Christmas’ and a digital xmas tree. Many years later, upon graduating as an Electrical Engineer from George Washington University, and bagging his MBA at Harvard Business School, he became the Vice President of Rand Merchant Bank (West Africa), after which he led Google Africa. Over the years, he has founded several tech startups – iNollywood, E-motion, DealDey, and Konga - the latest of which is Konga.com, a Nigerian online shopping mall launched July 2012 with 7 workers, which currently has grown to 130.

Along this eventful career, the tech geek has learnt that the key to enterprise success isn’t necessarily superior technological solution but people and relationships. “Business is transaction with individuals not machines or assets. Business, is people,” he says.

“And I sincerely want to make them happy.’

This people-centred philosophy has fundamentally shaped Shagaya’s leadership and company strategy at Konga Shopping Company. During the entire course of interviewing him, he addresses his Vice President, Marketing Onyeka Akumah (who was also present) as a ‘brother,’ not like a subordinate. A substantial 10 percent stake of his multi million dollar e-commerce company is shared among some members of his staff. He discloses, “even junior officers in customer service have ownership stake in this company.”

Notably, in an hour of discussing with Sim, he mentioned ‘customer service’ 9 times. Externally, Sim is bent on ensuring customers derive the deepest satisfaction on orders placed from his online store. “We would even install your ordered TV set for free,” he points out.

“Customer service is our North star. That’s the prime reason Naspers MIH found Konga and invested in us. We had knocked on countless doors in Mayfair and London for months, seeking funding.”

But the investors kept telling them: “We are not looking at Nigeria. Nigeria is too early. We are looking at India and Indonesia.”

Meanwhile, Konga’s efficiency at logistics systems and focus on consumer experience had helped the retailer garner customer loyalty and brand equity. Unknown to Sim and his team, while foreign investors turned down Konga’s investment proposal, South Africa’s media giant Naspers MIH Internet Africa, came across several tweets and blog posts testifying of Konga’s good customer service. The testimonials were overwhelming; they riveted the South African media giant’s attention. Two years earlier, Naspers MIH had operated an e-commerce business in Nigeria, Kalahari.com.ng. But a discouraging performance and inability to make near-term profit forced the multinational to shutdown operations. Konga’s impressive performance presented Naspers MIH an opportunity for a comeback into Africa’s largest market.

“We think they(Naspers MIH) did some test orders at Konga.com that went well,” Sim shares.

“But they(Naspers MIH) wouldn’t admit to it.” Sim had us all laughing!

Eventually, Naspers invested cash for equity in Konga under a non-disclosure term that makes it illegal for both parties to reveal specific facts about the deal. Reports have inaccurately put the size of equity acquired by Naspers at 50 percent. Sim discloses it is “significantly less.” What is not in doubt is that the serial South African online business investor poured an 8-digit million dollar cash into Konga. The business of online retailing for a market as large as Nigeria is capitally intensive.

According to Sim, “online retail is not really a tech business.” It is more of massive retail with DHL-like proportions of logistics.

Konga has its central distribution centre in Lagos warehousing all its inventory, with two sorting centres in Abuja and Port Harcourt which act as regional depots. From Lagos, products are transported to the sorting centres to meet orders coming in from around the regions, before being delivered to consumers. With Naspers’ investment, the retailer plans to engage in a plethora of offline marketing, improve logistics systems with better people, IT and working capital, and push out more sorting centres across Nigeria to deliver orders faster and more precisely.

“And this is the super-complex part. The decisions of what these distribution centres would look like in 2016, have to be taken now. Also you don’t want to stock a mobile phone the market wouldn’t want, in 6 months.”

In China, where arguably everything is manufactured, online stores can be run literarily in a sitting room with the orders supplied from the numerous manufacturers around. Because Nigeria is not a manufacturing country, the market is at the edge of global supply chain. Consequently, all-in-one retailers in the country need thousands of square feet of land to adequately stock supply for its 160 million peoples.

“Even Amazon’s total warehousing land area would cover from here(Ilupeju) to FESTAC,” Sim states.

Massive warehousing of this magnitude cost millions of dollars to acquire and millions to insure too. Last year, Actis reportedly raised over $200 million to construct new facilities to accommodate expansion plans for Shoprite in Nigeria. According to Sim, who’s from Plateau state in North-Central Nigeria, the country lacks this kind of facilities and the few available ones are deployed by major corporations like Nigerian Breweries. Konga would have to acquire land and start constructing its warehouses, he quips.

“Building a nationwide retail infrastructure is tough. It is even harder to secure funds. I don’t know how our entrepreneurs are surviving,” Sim frankly tells.

Being a pioneer has its disadvantage. With no prior online retail experience or template to follow in Nigeria, Africa’s second-largest economy, the Konga team has had to learn as the business grew, making mistakes, and relearning, in the middle of fierce competition. Konga’s uncompleted story is like the first human flight to the moon; a thoroughly calculated risk into the unknown.

The task may be daunting, but Sim Shagaya is a man who knows his onions. The 6 feet tall serial entrepreneur projects preparedness and confidence.

“This thing will take 10 years to build. Even Russia and China are still rated as early e-commerce markets. So don’t judge us yet. Konga is a bet on Nigeria. E-commerce in Nigeria will grow not on internet penetration but if the disposable income of the average resident increases!” Sim affirms.

When asked which product Nigerians ordered most, Sim’s reply was “the mobile phone… with clothing following strongly.” I tried to trick him to divulge confidential information: “I think the Blackberry sells most. What do you think? Is it the Blackberry? Samsung? iPhone? The amiable man burst out laughing.

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Why I open-sourced cures to my cancer: Salvatore Iaconesi

Photo: James Duncan Davidson

“This was my cancer,” TED Fellow Salvatore Iaconesi begins his TEDGlobal talk, showing a slide of brain scans taken last summer, when he was diagnosed with brain cancer at age 39.

Since the moment Iaconesi heard the word “cancer” come out of his doctors’ mouth, he noticed something — that the way people related to him turned on a dime.

“When you have something as serious as cancer, your life disappears and you are replaced by a disease,” he says. “Doctors start speaking a language which you don’t understand and which is not really meant for you to understand. Your friends and family start saying, ‘What did the doctors say?’ before they even say hello. You become a disease on legs.”

Iaconesi — an artist and open-source engineer — felt an intense desire to get his medical records and brain scans, to be able to “see what was growing inside of him.” The records were not only hard to obtain, but when he finally received them, they were in a code only meant for other medical professionals.

“I started to understand that this industrial process which we call medicine was not really about me. It was a reduced version of me with all the human complexity taken out of it.”

So Iaconesi decided to use his technical know-how, hack these files, and open them up for anyone to see on the website La Cura. He asked anyone in the world to send him a cure, be it medical or otherwise.

“I asked all the people in the world to join me in my disease and help me in any way they could,” he said, “and together rediscover our complexity as human beings.”

Photo: James Duncan Davidson

Iaconesi made a data visualization of the 500,000 responses he received from the website. He shows it on the TED stage, and notes that the network of cures — multiplying exponentially every week thanks to press attention — reminded him of the cancer he knew was growing inside of him. He received art, music, suggestions for medical treatments, thoughts on lifestyle changes, traditional cures. One artist even printed a 3D sculpture of his tumor. Teams formed as neuroscientists discussed with each other medical options and artists collaborated on pieces related to Iaconesi’s cancer.

“The solutions came from all over planet, spanning thousands of years of human history and traditions,” says Iaconesi.

In the end, Iaconesi had a successful surgery to remove the cancer. “I’m fine, really,” he says. Meanwhile, he implemented many of the non-medical cures submitted to him, and credits these with healing him as well. The experience gave him a new appreciation of human complexity, and of the need for open access.

“[My cures] were created by people’s desire to be a part of a society whose well-being depends on the well-being of all of its members,” says Iaconesi. “I will only stress a single point: Who cares about all of the openness if it’s not matched by radical anthropological and cultural change?”

FROM TEDGLOBAL 2013

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Want to be happy? Be grateful: Brother David Steindl-Rast

Photo: James Duncan Davidson

David Steindl-Rast is a monk, and a composed, serene figure to wrap up the last session of TEDGlobal 2013. His theme, gratefulness, is also appropriate for the end of a long and intense week. After all, he points out, we all share the same essential goal: to be happy. And gratitude provides the key. “We all know people who have lots of misfortunes that we ourselves would not want to have, and they are deeply happy, they radiate happiness,” he says. Why are they like this? “Because they are grateful. It is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.”

So how exactly do we live gratefully? ”By becoming aware that every moment is a ‘given moment,’ as we say,” Steindl-Rast explains. “It’s a gift. You haven’t earned it or brought it about. And you have no way of assuring there will be another moment given to you.” As such, we should consider each moment as precious and a great opportunity. “If you didn’t have this present moment you wouldn’t have any opportunity to do or experience anything.”

So what about that saying, “opportunity knocks only once.” Not true, says the good brother. “Think again. Every moment is a new gift.” Miss the opportunity of one moment and another one will be right along. “The master key to our happiness is in our own hands. Moment by moment we can be grateful for this gift.” It’s a beautifully simple but powerful thought.

Photo: James Duncan Davidson

So does this mean we should be grateful for everything, even bad stuff? Certainly not. “We cannot be grateful for violence, for war, for oppression, for exploitation,” says Steindl-Rast. “On a personal level we cannot be grateful for the loss of a friend, for unfaithfulness, for bereavement.” But he has a way to think about such bleak moments, too. “Even when we are confronted by something terribly difficult, we can rise to the occasion and respond to the opportunity given to us.” Sometimes the lesson of a painful experience is a chance to learn. We certainly tend to admire those who take something positive from a negative experience. And for those who don’t quite manage it this time, another opportunity will be along in a minute. “Phew,” says someone in the audience.

Steindl-Rast even has practical advice for living gratefully, moment by moment. It’s based on the advice children are given when learning to cross the road:

STOP: “We rush through life; we don’t stop, and we miss opportunities because we don’t stop,” he says. He tells us the story of returning home after spending time in a remote part of Africa, where there was no electricity, no water. At home, he was overwhelmed with gratitude every time he turned on a faucet or clicked on a light. Even after he re-assimilated into home life, he left stickers on the tap and switch to remind himself to be grateful for the resources.

LOOK: We must use all our senses to soak in the wonderful richness that life has given to us. “That is what life is about, to enjoy what is given to us,” he says. “When we open our hearts to opportunities, opportunities invite us to do something.”

GO: We should do whatever life offers to us in that present moment. Sometimes that might be difficult, but we should go with it and do our best to enjoy every moment.

Photo: James Duncan Davidson

It sounds simple, but Steindl-Rast thinks it might just spark a revolution. “Gratefulness can change our world in immensely important ways,” he says. “If you’re grateful, you’re not fearful. If you’re not fearful, you’re not violent. The grateful act out of a sense of enough, not scarcity, so they are willing to share.” Being grateful does no less than change the power balance of life. “It’s a nonviolent revolution that even revolutionizes the concept of revolution,” he says happily, to laughs from the crowd. “Grateful people are joyful people; the more joyful people are, the more we’ll have a joyful world.”

From TEDGlobal 2013

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STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS III: A SHORT STORY ON MY ENCOUNTER WITH TUBERCULES

Being a doctor can be really scary. Worse still is the fact of your knowledge about the pathophysiology of illnesses and ready access to more information about them. Sometimes the mantra that it is safer to be ignorant about some things can be golden here. We encounter different patients daily in practice, make deductions and treat appropriately. This write up is about one of such encounters, not so uncommon an occurrence by the way, and not a hospital encounter.

I had an issue with my car and took it to my panel beater, thinking it was a problem with my exhaust. I had not seen him in a long while so I didn’t know anything about his health. After some interactions with him I noticed he was leaner than usual as he floated inside his T-shirt and used some effort to talk, he also had this deep seated spirited cough he said had lasted for more than 2 months with copious sputum production. My heart immediately flipped at the thought that this guy will handle my car. He had pulmonary tuberculosis and was not receiving any treatment at the moment. He had started treatment for it some months before and when the symptoms of cough and copious sputum disappeared he thought he had conquered and stopped the drugs. Ignorance can also be a disease. Now the symptoms were back, and I hope not better. He ran from pillar to post to quell this cough using various over the counter cough syrups and other medications, of course all to no avail.

I was really disturbed at this double malady, but I had no choice, he was good at his skill. But how would I ward of the intervening tuberculous bacilli hovering around after bouts of expulsion from this guy, and looking for a susceptible lung to perch on, I asked myself? The worst recall was that a single sneeze can release up to 40,000 droplets, each with the ability to cause infection, then the low infectious dose (the inhalation of fewer than 10 bacteria).

First move was face away from his direction of speech and allow the soothing breeze to blow away the tubercules, hoping one weak, smoke infested or immunocompromised lung does not acquire it through inhalation – the primary route of infection, or one inactive lung TB does not get activated after reinfection by this one. That is ‘saara’ (TB for free) for the person. That is why we encourage people to stay healthy through feeding and lifestyle. Second move is ensure the guy goes back to continue his TB therapy, which is free by the way, in government hospitals, so he can be free to handle my car the next time I see him. So I made him go back to the primary health centre around, myself hoping not to have an encounter with him anymore, at least not any soon. Then one crazy thing happened. The mechanic he introduced to me to repair my car had not completely remedied the situation so I got stuck on my way to work and had to send the car back to him. In the annoyance and hurry so I don’t get to work late I rammed another vehicle from behind. I was sad.

Now my car was to get a good deal of beating from my panel beater who had TB. This thought kept ringing in my head as I stepped out to see the extent of damage I had caused. Luckily there was none on the other vehicle so I just apologized, but mine needed some good work. I was sad again, not for the damage, but for the encounter I would have, a longer contact this time. Now he would work on the exterior, then enter the car and try to test it, driving around in it, coughing and sneezing into his palms and caressing my steering afterward, spitting carelessly around thereby endangering us. The bacteria can withstand weak disinfectants and can survive in a dry state for weeks. But one good news; It replicates slowly, dividing every 15-20 hours…… the imagination was a terrible experience, and I was just hoping he had started his treatment so that at least the cough may have subsided. Then I called him and he hadn’t started.

I really had no choice so I braved it and gave him the car to work on, not very happy that tubercules will be flying all around within and outside my car by the time he was done. My imagination ran wild, the possibility of acquiring TB, the strength of my immunity, my recall that I have not stuck to taking a lot of fruits and vegetables to enhance my immune system, the fact that my childhood BCG vaccination should have worn out by now and the thought of getting another that day, the best ‘mycobacteriotoxic’ chemical to use to wash my car when he was done with the work. Such highfalutin thoughts just kept flashing. He could have saved me this stress if he continued his at least 8-month long TB therapy earlier. Why did he break it? Ignorance. The same ignorance that would have been safe to the mind that didn’t know the pathophysiology of illness, which would have thought it was a regular stubborn cough, the type that he once had, so would not go through the mind torture I underwent. It is such knowledge that sometimes negatively affects the prognosis of an ill doctor as compared to the other patient, when he does not believe in faith because of his understanding of the illness.

Anyway this time I got him to take the treatment seriously and never joke with TB. I infused the fear of God in his life especially when I mentioned that if he didn’t start treatment soon enough he would start coughing up blood. He thought that would be a near-death experience. I also told him he would be endangering other lives, especially his house mates. What is needed is a 15minute long close contact to be a potential carrier. So he has gone for a chest X-ray and sputum tests so as to recommence treatment with a basis, which he should have started by now. By the way when I later returned for my car I first opened all the windows so there could be cross ventilation and I started to imagine again where the tubercules could be trapped, then I had to open all the doors, then I imagined that his soiled greasy hands could habour live bacilli and he would have rubbed it on my steering, seat, door, windows, and so on. I needed a quick fix myself. So I tuned off and just went home to rest, but not before I reminded him of the fear of God I had infused earlier. Now he has resumed treatment and the cough is subsiding. He is really lucky the drugs are still working for him because antituberculous drug resistance is high especially when not taken correctly, just like other drugs.