Episode Transcript
Hello.
My name is Aziz and I'm the son of a divorced mother.
She is really my superhero.
That's why it's important for me to support women to share their uniqueness, their personalities,
perspectives, and emotions about life.
Too many women in this world feel alone.
They worry about the judgment of others and they struggle with their mental health.
But when they listen to the Rare Girls podcast where empowered women share their voices and
tell their stories, many women will feel inspired to live a life of freedom and to
overcome all their insecurities.
They will feel it is a safe space to find their confidence, to remember their unique
beauty and to feel their self-worth, and they will connect with the sisterhood of rare girls
who encourage their success and support their dreams.
That's what this podcast is all about.
My guest today is Krista Bell, Swahili.
Bella was born and raised in Tanzania, living now in South Africa.
Currently, she is pursuing her bachelor's degree in market management.
Her hobbies include swimming, adventures, and partying.
People often describe her as a positive, smiley party girl.
Bella, how are you today?
How good is this? How are you?
I feel blessed, I feel happy and very lucky to talk to you today
and very curious about you as a person.
So I'll ask this, because there are some people who think,
well, if you're a party girl you get bored easily
and therefore you cannot really focus on studies but at the same time you're pursuing a university
degree. How do you balance that? How do you create the discipline to study which could be boring
because you're studying looking at your books every day compared to having fun and partying?
Tell me more about both sides of your personality. To be honest, it's not an easy task to do.
not everyone is able to actually pull up and balance
between the party life and school life.
However, I am very lucky.
I was born and raised in a family
that we enjoy going out, we enjoy music.
So it has already been in my blood
of enjoying and having a good time.
And then I did struggle in a few months
that I wasn't able to balance between school and going out. However, I think just growing up
and realizing what's my priority, I had to balance it without choice and it just
came automatic to me. So currently we have approached June, which is exam season for
my university. So my priority is now studying and focusing with school and making sure that I
past my exams because it's my third year, so I can't really afford to repeat any modules
because I need to finish school. So I just display myself not to go out. I can go out
during the day just for a little bit of break, meet friends in there, but I won't go excessively.
So that's how I think it's an automatic thing that just came to me. I was able to
balance that.
I love that. And I know you're pursuing your bachelor's degree in market management
Can you explain some people might not know or understand what that means and why did
you choose it?
Okay.
A bachelor's degree majoring in marketing management.
So marketing, I think in general, is just the being able to go in outside to be able
to sell a business.
So the reason why I chose this course was because again, I'm a family, I'm coming
from a family that we're into tourism in Tanzania
in the tourism industry.
So my whole life I was introduced to that lifestyle
whereby if you meet a client, a potential client
or anybody that you believe is a potential client,
you're just ready to go and market your product.
So I've always been intrigued and ready to pitch
about my parents' company.
Like you should come, Tanzania is a beautiful country
and what you can do is actually book with us.
So I was, since young, I was ready to market our company.
That's why I decided to pursue that
because it's an empire that my parents have created
and I believe and I'm into it and I love it.
So it's something that I would love to continue
to build more into that empire.
I love that you are focused on building the legacy and continuing that of your parents.
And to ask you a bit more, you are living currently in South Africa.
Tanzania is not far away, but some people might wonder what is the difference in culture,
in people compared between Tanzania and South Africa? Although it's nearby,
did you have a little bit of culture shock and adaptation period, maybe because you were far
away from your parents, can you share your story and experience of that?
OK, so I am currently staying in South Africa, Johannesburg,
and I think I've been here between five to six years.
And I did have
a bit of challenges my first day, I think, on my second year
because of just being used to staying close to my parents and being
the child, you know, being taken care of. But then when I came to this side, I had to be independent
in doing most of the things by myself. But people do tell me that I look like a South African girl.
So it was very easy to adopt and be friendly and people actually approaching me with a friendly
way because I do look like them. So the culture, they're more into their culture than
Tanzania, they have, I think, seven international languages. The fact that you are a Black
woman or a Black person, they will approach you with their language. They will never
assume that you're a foreigner, so they have to speak to you in English. And it's not
that because I think they're just too proud to just, they just always want to speak
language, which is totally fine. So every time they greet me with their language,
whether it's a Zulu, Pedi, I will always say, I will greet back because I do know some few words,
but I will say, sorry, I don't speak your language. Can you please address me in English?
And automatically they do start addressing you. And then now it's a whole conversation of,
oh my God, okay, where are you from? What do you speak in your country?
In Tanzania, I can say with the people, we are more sweet and very welcoming, honestly
speaking.
You can never feel like an outsider and we're always ready to welcome you to our country.
As for South Africa, it was a bit of a challenge.
You had to try to fit in, I can say that, but it's not bad.
I'm actually enjoying this country.
I love that. And I love that you have a level of feeling at home there. At the same time,
you're a party girl. How would you compare the party scene of South Africa compared to Tanzania?
So I was born and raised in a small town in Tanzania called Moshi, where the highest mountain
of Africa is Mount Kilimanjaro. So it's a town, or I think now it's a city, whereby there's
a lot of options with where to go out or where entertainment is. However, there are other
cities that do provide that. But when I came to South Africa, it's a different lifestyle here.
They party from Monday to Monday. They are live. It's amazing to actually be in this country
when it comes to enjoying life.
They really know how to enjoy life.
You'll never, it's a country of life,
you'll never regret when you go back home.
So, it's beautiful out here.
The partying is, it's amazing, I can say that.
Thank you.
And you as a woman who is from Tanzania
studying in South Africa,
can you share a bit more about how you take care
of your mental health when you're living abroad?
Did you struggle with that a little bit?
A lot of women have, they fake it till they make it
where they try to show themselves to be strong
but maybe they don't realize how common it is,
struggles of mental health.
Did you have that?
And if so, what did you do in order
to find your balance and take care of yourself?
Okay, as how I said in my introduction,
I am a very positive person,
I'm a very, very positive person.
And it's something that I'll always have it in my blood.
Whenever I portray myself to someone or to people,
I'll always portray positivity.
So when I came to South Africa,
obviously the adjustment from Tanzania and here,
I'm away from my family, I'm away from my parents.
It was a challenge, I won't lie.
I won't say that life was perfect,
everything was good, no, it wasn't.
I did struggle with school because it's a different system. But I was thankful. My
beautiful mother was able to create an environment, a friendly environment for me,
a friendly, safe environment for me whereby she would drop anything. Whatever she's doing,
if she sees it's my phone call, she'll pick up and listen to me. Either I'm venting,
either I'm crying, either I just want to tell her I love her, either it's just I'm gossiping
about her, she's there for me. So my biggest method and a way that I was able to help myself
go through this life till today is my mother. Because the minute she tells me that I am okay,
I'll be okay and everything is going to be okay.
I believe that and automatically I become a better person.
So all credit goes to my beloved mother.
I love that.
And I resonate very, very much with what you said.
And even more, I want to extract as much
of your experience and wisdom.
You said that your parents built an empire
and you want to keep growing that. That's a lot of responsibility and a lot of ambition.
A lot of women have this fear that what if they go for their big dreams and they fail and they'll
be judged and they disappoint their parents and people will think oh you brought shame to your
family or whatever it is. So how do you keep yourself positive and feel motivated for such
big dreams, and what can you advise women who could be having opportunities but they
don't go for them because they worry so much what people will think if they fail and they
don't have that self-worth and self-confidence?
Okay, ever since I started, I'm currently on my third year, which is my final year.
So ever since I started this year, I've been feeling a lot of pressure because
now time is ticking.
Now it's time for me to finish school and I'm going back home.
When I'm going back home, meaning that I'm going to officially full-time work.
I'm currently actually working part-time for my parents also.
But now it's like next, from next year, I'll be working full-time.
The pressure is there.
The worries are there that maybe I'm not doing the right thing.
Maybe I won't be able to continue the legacy.
Maybe it will fall, you know.
But in life, I believe that failing is not the end of life. Failing is not death. Failing
is not the end. When you're going up the mountain, you might think it's a hole here,
but when you get on top, you see why you actually went through the whole climb. So
I believe that when I fail because of how I was raised. So in my family, we're two,
This is me and my elder brother, and we're both keen to continue our parents' legacy.
So the fact that our parents raised us and he's one of my best friends, I know whenever
I fail, I have someone I can lean onto.
Not everyone has the opportunity to actually have someone to lean to or a sibling or
a friend, but a legacy cannot just be continued or built with one person, with one person's
mind. No, it's a village. It takes a village. This is how they say that a child can't be
raised by just one person. They can, but sometimes you need a village, a community. You know,
today you hear this, today you hear that. You're like, okay, maybe this can actually
work on my child. So my confidence comes from my family. My confidence comes to
okay, no, today I'm not doing well today, but tomorrow I'll wake up with so much confidence,
so much positivity, a brighter day. Today it's shining outside. So why must I be dull?
I don't want to be dull. So my day won't be dull. I'm smart enough. And that's how I believe
I do every day. I try to do affirmations that I'm intelligent. I'm beautiful. I'm smart.
I can do this. And those affirmations actually help me because I come out from my house
smiling because I believe in myself. So believing in yourself, having a good support system is
wonderful. And I do have shout out to my friends. They are a system that I was able to, I was
blessed with that they always carry me when I'm falling. So I can say my confidence comes from
myself first and for my family and friends. I love the confidence, energy and positivity
you're showing. Thank you so much, Bella. And just to finish with a bit of talk about Tanzania or
maybe your city that you're from. You said it's no longer small. You spend a lot of time in tourism.
What are two, three things that you feel should be a priority for any person in order to
make Tanzania a destination on their list as well as make sure to visit Kilimanjaro and your city.
Let me just say this, Tanzania in general is a beautiful country.
It has beautiful people, it has beautiful environment,
it has a lot of beautiful things that people need to come and see.
We're one of the luckiest countries to have one of the highest mountains in Africa,
so why not challenge yourself?
So I have challenged myself. I've had to climb the mountain, I think, three times now.
In my last trip, I wasn't able to reach the summit because I got sick. But after coming down from
the mountain, it gave me this empowerment that I can actually do anything. It gave me this
confidence. It gave me this, that I'm a person who can climb mountain Kilimanjaro.
so it's an accomplishment that everyone and anyone can do it and i actually say and emphasize
it it's a challenge that if you can afford why not and a place whereby everyone should visit i
know it's very quite famous zanzibar it's beautiful has the most clear blue sea views
and everything so come to tanzania because tanzania is the country that you should be in
Thank you so much, Bella.
I really loved our episode.
I loved listening and hearing to your perspective,
sharing your voice.
I thank you for every minute.
I wish you all the success and I wish you no stress
and all the achievements and growing the empire
of your parents bigger and you feeling proud of yourself
and building those deeper connections
with everyone who witnesses your glory.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for this opportunity.
