Comprehension
A Day With Ulemu, Baking Cakes.
A report by Fitsani Buteo for Women’s Weekly Magazine Malawi, Published Online.
Please listen to the following passage and answer the questions which follow.
An array of colours like a colour spectrum greeted me upon entering Miss Ulemu’s kitchen; on the granite kitchen worktop was an assortment of healthy-looking vegetables she had carefully selected from Likoni market yesterday. In the bunch of miscellaneous ingredients laying on the side were a heap of flour, a bag of Zomba-made sugar, a bottle of water, rainbow coloured sprinkles, tin foil, baking trays and icing. Miss Ulemu explained how she was:
“Self-employed. I bake birthday, fairy cakes and make confectionary such as traditional Malawian delicacies for a living.”
Her most loyal customers are the school children from the nearby Likuni Preparatory School. Ulemu can be seen every lunch break in their compound- where she has become a permanent fixture- in an erected timber-framed stall built with funds denoted by the charity, Women Entrepreneurs First, selling miniature cupcakes and sweets.
In an interview for Women’s Weekly, Miss Ulemu enthused how at age 22 she became her own boss, manning a business 24/7 while juggling never-ending house chores and being a devoted wife. She thought she might be confined to a life of poverty having dropped out of secondary school in 2004 at the age of seventeen to become a mother to her now nineteen-year-old son, Mphatso.
Hard work had brought her success, on the contrary, after she secured a government loan from the Ministry of Women and Gender Affairs in 2018. Ulemu invested every penny of it in renting a shop, buying baking utensils and equipment.
Speaking to me about how much progress she has made, Miss Ulemu concluded,
“Every woman in this country should be empowered to set up her own business as mothers so much is expected of us in Likuni District too. We’re homemakers, parents, wives, we need a steady income in this economic climate.”
Report compiled by Fitsuni Buteo.
COPYRIGHTED- B. James.
Fitsani Buteo
Questions
1. What were on the kitchen worktop?
2a. Who does Ulemu work for? b. Has she got an employer?
3a. Was she a teenager mum? b. Please give a reason to support your answer.
4. Who are Ulemu's favourite customers?
5a. What complied the report? b. Where was the feature published?
6a. Which organisation donated towards Ulemu's stall? b. Where did she get the money from to invest in her business?
7a. Has Ulemu got any children? b. What are their names and ages?
8. What did Ulemu say should happen with Malawian women?
Answers
1. On the kitchen workshop were an assortment of healthy-looking vegetables, miscellaneous ingredients such as a heap of flour, a bag of Zomba-made sugar, a bottle of water, rainbow coloured sprinkles, tin foil, baking trays and icing.
2a. Ulemu is self-employed. b. She doesn't have an employer.
3a. Yes, she was. b. The report states that at the age of seventeen, Ulemu became a mother.
4. Ulemu's favourite customers are the school children from the nearby Likuni Preparatory School.
5a. The report was compiled by Fitsani Buteo. b. It was published in Women's Weekly, an online magazine in Malawi.
6a. The charity, Women Entrepreneurs First, donated funds towards the erection of Ulemu's stall. b. She obtained a government loan.
7a. Yes, she has. b. Her son Mphatso is nineteen-years-old.
8a. Ulemu says Malawian women should be empowered to set up their own business.