BY ROMULUS HUTA
FOR some women, the choice to leave working in an office and become a market vendor might be not the right option.
Obviously, the reason is that many will generally feel that any market place is not the right place for women who have attained better education but rather, for those ones who did very little formal education and cannot afford to get a job.
But according to Ms Joy Buoka, that is not the case. This is because it is quite difficult to cope with the daily pressure of living in a city such as Honiara where there is high cost of living, is very challenging – something that not only herself encounters but rather almost all average income earners in Honiara City.
Ms Buoka is a journalist by profession, having graduated with a Certificate in Media and Journalism from the Solomon Islands National University (SINU) in 2013.
Upon the completion of her studies, she immediately joined Solomon Star Newspaper as a reporter.
After almost two years with the leading daily paper, she left the paper in March. Asked what pushed her into selling goods at the local market, she confidently said: “I had to do this to earn money to meet my family’s basic needs and wants.
“The salary I was earning was not enough to meet the basic needs and wants for my family. I can’t continue on living like this.
“The life we live today is very tough. Our economy is weak and everything in the shops is expensive,” she stressed.
Ms Buaoka sells varieties of goods at the Honiara Central Market each day ranging from all types of vegetables and root crops to cooked popcorns. Though she don’t have a farm on her own, she would purchase the vegetables and the root crops from local farmers in town and re-sell them with reasonable mark-ups to consumers.
“This is good business for me. The farmers too are happy when I purchase their goods and I make good profits.”
On average, Ms Buoka earns between $300- $700 a day – quite a big money compared to the salary she earns a fortnight whilst still being a reporter.
“During peak times, my earning per day could also go as far as a thousand dollars,” the 23- year old who will turn another year older next month said.
Being a market vendor is not something that just came out of the blue. As a child growing up, she spent most of the time in her early years with her grandparents, where back then they used to own a banana plantation at their home village in Maoro, Central Kwara’ae, Malaita Province.
Each weekend, she would help her grandfather to harvest the bananas and take them to sell at the nearest market.
“My grannies used to tell me that life is not easy. It’s just about choice but must be the right one. The choice to make money and the choice not to make money lies on the palm of our hands, my grannies told me,” she said.
“If you are willing then you can earn good money. If you are lazy then you will earn nothing.”
Ms Buaoka comes from a family of four including her father and mother. She is the eldest. Her younger sister is in grade six at one of the primary schools in Honiara. Her father works as a plumber. Though her father earns money through his plumbing work, Ms Buoka still supports them whenever necessary.
“From my market earnings, I often assist my family whenever I have surplus – with both goods and money. I don’t do that all the time because I also have my own family to run.”
Ms Buaoka then encourages other women whom their salaries can’t afford to sustain them for the whole two weeks to venture into other extra income-generating activities.
