Elizabeth Makhosazana Ndlovu sits at the corner of a bed that is supported by bricks in her home as she is interviewed. Her head cloth is a cheetah print. What is distinct about Elizabeth is not even her passion for cooking. She is energetic and full of life at the age of 64. Elizabeth Makhosazana Ndlovu sits at the corner of a bed that is supported by bricks in her home as she is interviewed. Her head cloth is a cheetah print. What is distinct about Elizabeth is not even her passion for cooking. She is energetic and full of life at the age of 64. She is a woman with many lives and undoubtedly this must be her best life yet. In her lifetime she has endured losing 5 children. She is left with one daughter out of the 6 children she gave birth to. She lost her husband in 1989 and had been living in the rural areas. Elizabeth has had a passion for cooking since she was a girl, however resources were limited in rural areas. In 1990 she moved back to the city and became a maid. Her cooking skills were so exceptional that her employer started cooking lessons where Elizabeth became the school’s cooking instructor. After 7 years of working as a maid Elizabeth resigned in order to dedicate herself more to her passion. Elizabeth mentored her daughter and son in-law who have now joined her in her business. She has also infused her two granddaughters Nombuso and Nompilo with the same passion. They now cook with her as she is no longer a young woman. She has been cooking and baking in order to support herself. Some of her products include: a bucket of baked goods for R120 each, slices of baked banana bread worth R1.50 each, a plate of phuthu* with vegetables and meat for R16 or R17 with rice instead of phuthu. She caters for events such as funerals, weddings, birthdays and other events in her local community. She used to rent at the local community hall called Steers where she paid R50/month. Here her customers were mainly teachers from the local school. This is place where she experienced new challenges. She found that she had to deal with disagreements with the owners of the building. They were supposed to ensure that the gas is always available for her to use however too often they failed to provide her with such services. She would face further challenges when she had to make a plan to purchase gas herself. Transport owners would mislead her when she needed assistance with the purchasing of gas. They would give her less gas than the amount she had initially requested from them to purchase for her. What further crippled her efforts was that a lot of business was on credit. Most of Elizabeth’s clients failed to pay what they owed her and so her business suffered. Elizabeth is however still inexhaustible. She has not given up; underneath she is still as strong as those bricks that support her bed. The interview draws to a close and Elizabeth gives us an insight to her other passion, a love and respect for knowledge. She puts on her broken glasses and tells us that she is currently attending Bible School. She has already done and learnt so much on her own how much more will she learn as she puts her hands in Hand In Hand? *Phutu is a South African dish that looks like kuskus made out of meallie-meal.