About Once Upon a Stove | About Lily

About Lily

Lillian Ngwexana grew up in the Eastern Cape, the daughter of a very old father. After his death, despite her youth, she was sent out to Cape Town to earn money to support the family. Although she was initially hampered by a complete lack of English, she was able to teach herself to speak it through a very surprising method (which I will let her tell you when you visit!).

Through various jobs, she earnt enough money to support herself and her family, and eventually wound up as a debt collector for Cash Bank. In the last days of this doomed bank, she was sent to repossess a small two ring electric stove, which she then proceeded to buy off the bank, leaving her career as a debt collector behind her.

In order to provide some income for the family, Lily started selling second hand clothes, and, later, she took to the stove; she started making scones for schoolchildren, using a recipe she found on the back of a packet of flour. Often she would have to get up as early as 4am in order to bake enough scones to sell at the school, as, due to the stove's small size, she would have to bake the scones in batches. Via this enterprise she was able to build her house (with her own hands) and put her four children through private school.

Anxious to move out of this back-breaking work, she and a friend attended a presentation given in Kayamandi one day outlining the homestay project that people wished to start in the township. The first hand in the air when they asked for people to embark on this project was Lily's and when asked to name her business she called in 'Once Upon a Stove' because, as she says, "this is me, this is how everything came to exist".

Today, she is a major success and a pillar of the local society, often helping other people in the same predicament she was in to help themselves and find work. In her time she has also run for political office, although was unsuccessful due to a slight clerical error when filling out the form for the ward for which she wished to stand.

Over the years she has added to the homestay business she is running, by hosting traditional Xhosa meals and providing entertainment and tours for tourists visiting the township.