 today is gonna be a good day that today is gonna be thank you so much thank you for bringing me here I've been in Kenya for two good weeks and all I eat is ugali with salt which is tasty right she gave me ugali and all I need to do is to put salt in there and then blend it but I was craving for Ghana fufu man you know that I can't live without fufu so she said there is a restaurant in Nairobi called Mama Ashanti I need to know the person behind this you don't think so? Mama Ashanti it definitely has to be a woman you want to go buy a Kenyan or a Ghanaian you must be a Ghanaian maybe a Kenyan will need it if it's a Ghanaian or a Kenyan it has to be a woman Mama Ashanti because this food can only be cooked by women wow I'm so sorry Steven I'm so sorry my camera guy even you won't have the chance to enjoy the bones what is this? you don't know this? or they don't know? I know fufu yes this is fufu this is the main course in Ghana it's like our gali here in Kenya exactly you can't compare gali with fufu you can't compare gali with bangku not this one it's because you said it's your main course so gali is the main course in Kenya yes this is a mixture of cassava and plantain and it's a granite soup with goats this is heavenly you know what we are going to find out who made this definitely I need to talk to him before I leave here cut let me go and look for the person I'm looking for Mama Shanti and you don't look like you are Mama Shanti I'm Baba Shanti because when I ate the food I said like who is the woman who cooked this food yes and you are the one popping up no you see there is you have to divide you have to divide the the responsibilities so the face is Baba the one behind the one behind where the real thing comes from is Mama so there is Mama Shanti and Baba Shanti so you are the Baba Shanti yes I just want to know my name is Wada Maya from Ghana and your name is Sen Nanu Sen Nanu from Ghana yes yes who is from Ghana the Volta region Volta, Agbozuma hey and what are you doing in Kenya well I'm making sure that when people like you come you have a hospitable place to come and have some food to come and share fellowship with Kenyans it's also for Kenyans to be able to taste our food from Ghana or West Africa because this is not Ghanaian it's West Africa you have Ugarli here of course we also have Ugarli here have Ugarli with salt we don't put salt in Ugarli when I came in here I saw Ugarli and I'm like this tastes like Akpene with our salt yes I had to put salt in and with the Nyamochoma and everyone was looking at my face that's sacrilege you know that's destroying other people's food I'll never do that I will do that again I'm so sorry for Kenyans and you know what since you're from Ghana I don't know how long have we been in Kenya 27 years 27 years in Kenya why did you leave Ghana and decide to stay in Kenya no I didn't I came here for holiday I'm still on holiday 27 years ago you came for holidays and you're still on holidays how is that possible your visa has not expired yet no it didn't they gave me permanent visa you have a Kenyan passport or you still use it a Ghana passport I have both tell me the reason why you decided to settle in here for 27 good years well various reasons I came here as I said on a holiday I discovered that I was not my body wasn't good with the cold because there's a part of Kenya which is very cold close to the mountains and also a place called Eldoret where the runners come from so I was meant to go to the US to North Carolina which would have been very cold and my dad was my dad was a lecturer here at that time he was like if you can't take the cold here in Eldoret you'll die in the US so why don't you stay wait for the summer to go so during that period I applied for any American colleges here so I could take some credits when I'm going in the summer and then I got into the American University called USIU and I did my first term I got four years unfortunately I did the second I got another four years and I was giving a scholarship to go to the US no to finish there so I finished my undergrad in Kenya in Kenya and after undergrad didn't want to go back to Ghana I did I went back to Ghana and what happened for holiday for six months ah so it's just like you having holidays yes it was just holidays so you went to Ghana for holidays I went to Ghana for holidays I tried to look for something to do nothing came I said let me come back to Kenya so I came back to Kenya with a suitcase full of Ghanian clothes and what happened to the clothes so clothes I've had a clothing business for quite a long time you mean you were selling those clothes that you came from yeah yeah yeah sell clothes evenings evenings and weekends it's called it's called being a hustler being a hustler which year was this 96 97 that's when I started I finished so I came here in 93 I finished university in 95 went back to Ghana I came back in 96 I did clothes for you can say six months to a year and set up a business in clothes I left it I started doing telecommunication I went into sales of telecommunication so I've been in telecommunication industry for 25 years 25 years but I've also had the business in terms of clothing business and in terms of food so this is five years what you see here today we started in 2015 was this the first one you ever established no no no no this is fourth time lucky I failed three times in order to get this I don't understand you tried to set up a restaurant I tried to set up a restaurant and I failed three times this is the last one this is the fourth one not the last the fourth there shall be many other enterprises okay very soon yeah but what is the secret behind Mama Shanti because you know everyone is telling me about Mama Shanti I feel so in my comment section people are like stop eating Kenyan food because people know that I love foofoo and they were like this is the only place that you're going to get foofoo real good foofoo tell me Mama Shanti the secret behind it is a solid partnership so I'm not the sole owner we are three there is myself there is a gentleman called Hawas who is from Nigeria and there is Nana so Nana is actually he is also Ghanian he is basically the one who is the managing partner so he is here normally day to day just that as a good Ghanian he is going to London for holiday you know the way you guys like to do it Ghanian is a London Ghanian is a London so he is going to London for holiday but yeah so because we are a partnership each one of us plays an important role I deal with the strategy and the marketing Hawas deals with the finance and the operations part of the operations and then Nana deals with making sure that the kitchen works and on ground customer experience so the three of us together have made this partnership work my first restaurant failed because the location was not right my second restaurant which was with the same partner failed because the food quality was not good enough my third opportunity we never even got to put the money in the ground because we came together we put the money together in a bank account we kept on looking for location we didn't find and then after maybe three months one person will come and say oh you know my car has a problem can I take out X my mom is not well can I take out Y this is the fourth attempt and it was very successful wasn't worth it investing in this restaurant here in Kenya yes it's been worth it and let me explain the payback may not necessarily be in dividends in financial the payback has been this for me was a project to ensure that the community where I see the West Afghan community had a place to come and find their food this is also a place where when Nigerians or Ghanians or Cameroonians come into the country they know they can come and have some of their food this is also a place where we have been able to bring Kenyans and they can come and they can eat and they can answer oh because they watch a lot of Nollywood ah this is Okra oh this is Fufu oh this is yeah so we are able to this is also a cultural place so for me this assignment is not necessarily about money this is about bringing the West African culture to East Africa yes and bringing the community together 27 years in Kenya yes apart from the restaurant apart from new selling clothes it should be something that will keep you in this country like what? don't tell anyone are you married to a Ghanian or a Kenyan? of course a Kenyan see I know it you met your wife in Kenya yes I did and I think that is the reason why you are still here she is part of the reason part of the reason part of the reason I said the main reason maybe there is a Kubimama Shanti I don't know no but she is a lot of the reason why I said yes I got married to a Kenyan I got married 20 years ago so I think that made me settle very fast you have two kids 13 and 12 and yeah you know what I am so happy to see a Ghanian investing in Kenya which means that it is time for Africans to invest in their own continent 100% 100% you are preaching to the preacher so let us know there are so many Africans watching us right instead of them investing out of the continent do you think it is advisable for us to invest in our own continent no I don't think it is advisable I know it is advisable if Africa is to grow we have the first generation who what we call Pan-Africanist and what they did was to work on the political independence of Africa now in the second generation we are what we call Afro-Optimist and Afro-Catalyst to be an Afro-Optimist is to be optimistic in Africa why would you take your money out of Africa when you are optimistic but to be an Afro-Catalyst which is what I believe in is to invest I would rather invest in Uganda invest in Zimbabwe invest in Sierra Leone than take my money to Europe why why I wouldn't first of all if it is a pure interest the rates that I will get on the continent are better we understand the risks of the continent we understand the people of the continent if you think about it the lines which have been drawn for African countries were drawn by somebody who was drinking something very cheap like in western Pamuay people don't understand the lines that you are talking about what lines are you talking about the geographical lines or rather the political lines which are drawn for the countries somebody just took a ruler and drew Ghana and Togo Benin and Nigeria no if you think about the people they share culture so yes 100% I agree that we need to invest in Africa as Africans we need to understand that if you are born in Kenya Uganda, Tanzania, the region minimum is part of your stomping ground you should feel free to move across and do what you need to and you should feel free more importantly on the whole continent because it's ours and once we are doing even Africa free trade the only way free trade will happen is by me knowing you as I assume I am from Uganda you are from Kenya she is from Zimbabwe and we come together and we do business together we know each other we travel we see because if you don't travel and see you are also uncomfortable you might think because I think people don't understand what is going on in different African countries because we as Africans don't know each other no we know London we know Paris we know Dubai but we do not know Zimbabwe we do not know Sierra Leone so we have to travel more we have to meet more people we have to invest more if you had a chance to change something in Africa what would it be? the mentality of our political elite the mentality of our teachers our teachers need to teach the youth to come out to be entrepreneurs job creators that's number one the problem of Africa youth is not going to be solved by civil multinationals or civil service jobs in the public sector it's going to be solved through entrepreneurship it's going to be solved with people opening their minds taking their skills to neighbouring countries it's also going to be solved if we change our mentality towards agri business we have to till the land ourselves we have to go back to our roots farming until the land ourselves whoa I feel like I need to talk to you more because you have a lot to share even more than your ratio oh my goodness but tell us where to find you whenever we come to Kenya you can find Baba Shanti at Mama Shanti which part of Kenya? which part of Kenya? Nairobi in which part of Nairobi? Laventine I heard Laventine is for rich people I don't know about rich people I know about people who are working hard to build economies of Africa I just want to thank you so much for talking to me thank you