#6: Ellen Kwenda from Johannesburg, South Africa

00:00:07
Rob Bednark    Welcome to the Three Answers podcast, where we reveal the day-to-day goodness in people's lives. Each guest answers three questions, such as, what is something simple that brings you joy every day? This is show number 6, recorded on November 21, 2025.

In Portland, Oregon, I'm your host today, Rob Bednark.

Today, I'm excited to do a call with Ellen Kwenda, who is from Johannesburg, South Africa. I met Ellen in a call six months ago. I really enjoyed my call with her back then, and I'm excited that she accepted my invitation to be a guest on the show. Ellen was born, raised, and lives in Johannesburg and is spending this winter working in Canada. I'm eager to find out more about her and discover some of the day-to-day goodness in her life.

00:01:14
Hey, Ellen. Nice to see you. Thank you for joining me.

Ellen Kwenda    Hi, Rob. Good to see you again.

Rob    And where are you at today?

Ellen    I'm in the beautiful land of maple syrup, in Canada.

Rob    Ah, wonderful. Canada. And what is your home? Where are you from?

Ellen    I was born and originally from South Africa, in a not so small, but not too big also, a city called Johannesburg in Soweto.

Rob    Ah, excellent. Would you give us an introduction? You're free to share whatever you like.

00:01:58
Ellen    Yes, thanks, Rob. So my name is Ellen Kwenda. I was born in South Africa, in Johannesburg, in Soweto. I was born in the era towards the end of bad history in our country called apartheid, and got to witness a lot of history at that time.

I have a good love for science, and I'm a scientist by profession, specifically a chemist, so I love working with different chemicals, trying to make new materials that we can use in different applications, whether it is solving different challenges, such as energy crisis, dealing with pollution, air, water.

00:02:52
One thing also that's a bit quirky and something I love to share about myself, something not serious, is that I always love dresses with pockets. So I'm a girl who loves dresses with pockets. I love red, I love flowers.

00:03:15
Yeah, I'm an aunt to two beautiful kids, a nephew and a niece, and yeah, they're just adorable. Well, I don't think they think they're adorable because now they're moving into their teenage years, but to me, as they're aunt, I still think so.

00:03:40
What else about me? I love reading. I've always done that from a very young age, and I love telling stories. I love reading stories and I love telling stories.

I'm currently in Canada right now, where I'm part of a university doing some research here in science, still again, because that is my passion, kind of like my first love.

00:04:09
Rob    Ah, excellent. How long are you in Canada for?

Ellen    I'll be here until March.

Rob    Oh, okay. All through the cold winter.

Ellen    So 2025 is a year where I don't do summer.

00:04:31
Rob    Right, because South Africa is summer now and you're in the winter in Canada.

Ellen    In the winter, when I go back, it will be the winter of... summer for them and then I'm going into winter.

Rob    A whole year of winter for you, wow. Of course, I imagine winters in Johannesburg are much warmer than winters in Canada, probably.

00:04:54
Ellen    Oh, yes, definitely they are. But when you're there, you don't think that, "Oh my God, I'm going to die!"

Rob    Exactly. It's all relative, I guess. You said you love telling stories. When did that come about? When do you remember first being in love with stories and storytelling?

Ellen    From a very young age, I've got this character that I had made up in my mind and that was like my alter persona. I used to tell stories about this character and what I was doing as this character.

Something that I didn't share also about me. In South Africa, we've got 12 languages or 12 tribes or nations, right? For me, I'm Sotho, I'm Xhosa, I'm Venda, and I'm Chewa.

00:06:01
On my Sotho side, which is from my father's side and my grandmother, she's from Lesotho. I made up a character from Lesotho and I call this character Queen of Maluti. Maluti is a mountain in Lesotho. Then I named myself a queen of that mountain and I have people in that mountain. So daily, I would tell stories about how I'm leading my people and how I'm doing adventurous things with them.

I even remember the other day I told a story, I was just playing by myself while I was indoors. I loved spending time indoors. Mostly, it's because when I would go outdoors, I would nosebleed. Someone would just say, "stay indoors!". Because it gets quite hot outside. Two minutes, five minutes outdoors and then I start nosebleeds.

So stay indoors. To keep myself entertained, because I wouldn't be playing with other kids running around in the sun, I would tell those stories. And Sometimes I'll hear my sister laugh. She'll be like, wow, are you serious? Is that how the story is going to turn today? I would keep her entertained.

So yeah, from a very young age, I've always loved telling stories. I'm that person that even in my family... So I've got two sisters. I'm relating to my one sister about what happened or what was shared by my other sister. I was telling them, "Oh, this is what happened".

I would have action and drama. They would ask me questions. So what happened next? I was like, oh, I don't know. I wasn't there. It's my sister's story. They're like, my goodness, you told it like you were there.

Rob    So you even telling other people's stories too?

00:08:20

Ellen    Other people's stories too, yes.

Rob    Wonderful. I love good storytellers. I do not at all consider myself a storyteller, but I really appreciate good storytelling. I think everybody does. I think it's part of human--part of our humanity that we love to hear stories.

00:08:41
Ellen    Yeah. Definitely. Stories are good. Good for the soul.

Rob    So you said the character you had created was queen of--how do you spell the name of the mountain?

Ellen    Maluti. So M-A-L-U-T-I. Maluti.

00:09:02
Rob    So do you still tell stories about that character or to yourself or to others?

Ellen    I haven't in a long time. And I'd actually forgotten about it. And it's just recently I started remembering those stories and how I would entertain myself and even maybe dress up sometimes with that. And I was just reflecting that as you grow older, sometimes the things that brings creativity in us and that are really part of our character, we sometimes kind of forget. Or sometimes it's because of the pressures of life that we go through that makes us kind of forget practicing those things that we used to do or doing those things that we used to do when you were young.

And yeah, I'm reminding myself of that character of Queen Maluti, how fearless she was and how she would stand for justice for her people, protecting them, doing whatever it takes to make sure that her people, her loyal subjects are well taken care of and that in being this queen and being respected is that also she cared about her people.

And yeah, it just resonated with me even in this current time in my life that I'm still that person that loves speaking for others , that [are] less fortunate. So yeah, it was a good reminder.

Rob    That's beautiful. And you talked about growing up around the time of the end of apartheid. What did that look like for you? What kind of stands out in your memories about that time period?

Ellen    Yeah, there are a lot of things. And I see now that, you know, when we look back and you reflect, you're like, "Wow, so much has changed in our country in South Africa."

So, I remember it was towards the end. So there was a lot of talk of ending that old regime. And the one name that used to come up quite a lot in people's conversation around that topic, it was Nelson Mandela. And, you know, we would get to be taught or to be informed by our parents about what is happening in our society, you know. And how there were a group of people that had decided that it was illegal for people of different races to come together, to live together. You choose a way you want to live. We want to go to school. We want to work. So we lived in those times knowing that.

So in Soweto, those were homes where it was demarcated to say certain groups of people are going to live in that area. And it was even further demarcated in a way that if you speak a certain language or you come from a certain tribe, then you live in a certain section in Soweto. And it was like that. Also in, you know, the more affluent areas, there it was also demarcated that certain people are only going to live or have access to those areas. So the city, the way it's designed also is still reflective of those laws and those ideologies, where certain towns are far away from certain resources.

Good thing we didn't have any civil war at the time, but we always grew up with, you know, we've been told that any time we could have war. Any time, you know, we're not safe and we could have people coming to our homes to kill us. We could have people--we could be displaced at any moment. So we need to be ready to run. We need to be ready to flee to another country, so into our neighboring countries.

So we were always ready for that. And worse, if you had someone in your family who was suspected of being linked to political movements, then the police would come into your house--or the police at that time, which are operating on a different way compared to police right now. And, you know, they would even vandalize your house because they're trying to look for something, whether it's documents, whether it's any information that could lead them to infiltrating or finding people that were part of the movement, which are against the regime at that time. There was no any other life except that's the life we knew.

And then Nelson Mandela was released from prison. Wow. I remember that. That was one of--like in the atmosphere,it was so electric. It was--you could just literally feel the change that something has changed in this country, that there was a whole switch, that the regime had ended.

And I remember Nelson Mandela, because he then would go through different towns so that people could see him, because we've heard so many years that this man is in prison and now he's out. And is it really true that he is out? Because we saw him on TV when he came out.

I think there's like a famous picture when he comes out with Winnie Mandela there from Robin Island. But now people are like, is he really out? And he was making--and he passed our street where I used to live. And I saw him! And I came out and I was so happy! And we were greeting him. We're like, "Nelson! Nelson! da da da da..." We were just so excited to see him.

Then after that, when he came out, it was towards the first democratic elections. And I remember it was very tense at that time, like in the atmosphere, because now those rumors again of war, they started appearing again, that because certain groups of people, they didn't want this change and they didn't want transition. Everybody feared the change, right? Because we don't know what it's going to look like after this whole transition. And everybody was just so tense.

We would hear of people gathering up resources like firearms and all of those things to start war. And we'll always be so tense. And sometimes they would throw these chemical bombs on the street where when that happens, you just have to go indoors and kind of close your windows and even make sure you seal any holes so that the chemicals don't come into your house because it would be just--when you're far away, you wouldn't be injured from that. But then the gas was not comfortable for you to breathe in. It would only hurt you if you were very close to the gas.

So there were a lot of that that happened as we're moving towards the election. And we witnessed our parents go and vote for the first time in their life. So I was under eight. I couldn't vote at that time. And we then started looking forward to, oh my God, in four years' time, that will be us. We're going to have our first elections and we're going to vote. And yeah, it was such a beautiful thing to witness. When we saw that transition in the country.

Rob    Wow. Yeah, that's amazing.

Well, let's start in with the questions that you chose. So the first one:

What's something you've let go of that has made your life better?

Ellen    It's coffee. I woke up one day and I couldn't drink coffee.

Rob    Yeah?

Ellen    Yeah. And it's the truth. And it happened literally like that. I used to be a heavy coffee drinker. Even now, people--when I tell them that I don't drink coffee, they don't believe me. I even had one person say to me, "what do you look forward to when you wake up in the morning"? And I said, "I look forward to drinking my hot water." That is why... I've replaced my coffee drinking habits with hot water.

Yeah. So I went on this journey when I wanted to improve my health and to introduce certain good habits. And I went on this--it was called weight loss or fat loss challenge or something like that. So I went onto Twitter at one day and I found this lady, she's a fitness coach and she was saying, "I'm going to have this weight loss challenge. If you want to join me in the next month, contact me." And then I took the number and I contacted her and I said, "Okay, I've never done diets in my life. I've always been, like, anti-diets." And I like--for the first time I'm committing to do a diet and I want to see how it goes. I joined the challenge. I didn't know how it was going to be. And I didn't know if I'll also follow through with it.

So for the first week, so she said she wants to detox us, and we went on this detox for one week. It's more like a fad diet where--it's you remove a lot of food groups and you're just eating kind of like one thing the whole week. But we were eating--so the whole aim is to eat clean, natural foods prepared with minimal processing. If you really have to cook it, you can either just boil it or a bake it, right? No using oil or things like that. And no salt, no sugar, no processed foods, no carbohydrate-based foods, you know, just mostly foods and vegetables, eat them raw, you know. And it was very delicious, but very challenging.

And in that whole one week, I was craving coffee and we're not allowed to drink coffee or tea. So at the end of the week, we were told we can reintroduce coffee into our diet. And I was so looking forward to drinking my first cup of coffee on a Monday morning. I woke up--and yes, I was that person. I looked forward to waking up in the morning and going to make my cup of coffee. And I did that, and it smelled so good. And as I was about to sip this coffee, oh my goodness, it was the worst thing ever! I was like, "I can't drink this". I couldn't even swallow it.

Rob    Wow. Same coffee. One week later, one week, no coffee. And then it tastes terrible to you?

Ellen    Yeah. But I'm like--but I'm craving this thing. And I thought, okay, maybe let me give it a day. I left the coffee, poured it down the drain, washed the cup. I'm like, "that's fine, let's not rush into the coffee. We'll try it again tomorrow."

Woke up the next day, went to the kitchen, made a cup of coffee. And then I was like, this is the day I'm going to drink my coffee. Into my mouth--couldn't swallow it. And that was the end of my journey and love of coffee.

Rob    Oh my gosh. That's crazy. So why do you think that was?

Ellen    I haven't really figured that out. But it could be that maybe I'd reached my coffee saturation level.

Rob    You already drank a lifetime's worth of coffee.

Ellen    My body's like, well, I think you've done enough.

Rob    So was that difficult? Were you sad about it or was it because it didn't taste good anymore? Was there no grief around it or sadness?

Ellen    No, some grief actually for that whole week, for the rest of the week. I was confused. I was frustrated. I didn't know what was going on. How do I make myself drink coffee again?

And after a week, I decided to let it go. And yeah, I decided it's fine. Let me see how long this will last. And it's been four years now. And I haven't had a cup of coffee.

Rob    Wow. Oh my gosh. And you mentioned you've replaced it with hot water?

Ellen    Yeah. So I look forward to waking up and boiling hot water and drinking it as it is.

Rob    Oh, beautiful. Wow. Well--plain, simple, pure.

Ellen    Yeah. So no more coffee for me.

Rob    No more coffee. And so that was one of the, I guess, outcomes from doing that diet that you hadn't expected. So overall, were there any other impacts from the diet, that you've taken away from it, things you've changed?

Ellen    Yeah. There were a lot of things that were good, that were positive. And it wasn't just the coffee. There were other food groups that I loved. And afterwards, I couldn't eat them. Peanut butter, there was another thing. I still love peanut butter. Who doesn't love peanut butter? I mean, I was even at the store today and I looked at a whole shelf of peanut butter and I was just like, I can't buy it.

Rob    So similar to the coffee, your body just doesn't like it anymore?

Ellen    Yeah. So it's like, you've had enough peanut butter.

Rob    So four years ago, the day, the day that, uh, that was the end of coffee for you. Hmm.

Ellen    Yeah. I learned to take care of myself and my health. And they've become very important. I only have one body, and taking care of it is very important. Like I said, I'm not the person that would do diets. This was my first time that I done a diet, and to even weigh my food, you know, to count calories, to weigh myself, and to exercise consistently. So that discipline of taking care of myself was very good for me. And not just physically but mentally. That put my mindat a very good and positive space.

And I think that how I lived with the challenge, it was--we were not competing against each other as such. We were in a community where we were encouraging each other, because it's--you would post, uh, like after a week and just say, this is your progress. And also people would share, especially in that first--that tough first week of the detox, because it was "what do you eat?", you know? Fruits and vegetables for the whole week? They just gonna taste bland, even though they're not bland. And sharing ideas on the group. We formed some community and that was, that was very good.

And the challenge at the end was challenging ourselves. Like if you're saying you're going to commit to doing something, are you going to follow through and how serious are you with changing your life? So that was good. And also I lost a lot of weight at that time. So that was good for me. I enjoyed that, and staying fit and active and, and enjoying food.

I've always enjoyed food, but enjoying food in its natural state--I'm not always trying to. I think sometimes how we complicate it is we always try to, you know, add too much flavor, it's, it's like with our relationship, we're always trying to impress other people and not just be natural and be yourself, you know, and with food it's the same. Uh, yeah, fruits and vegetables, they are tasty on their own. They've got flavors before we're adding in all the other flavors and doing all the other things.

Rob    Right. Yeah. I've noticed that myself with flavor, that it's, uh, flavors are an appetite stimulant. Salt, sugar--the more I eat it or when I eat it, I feel myself even wanting more and getting more hungry. So I can see how that can have, that just kind of leads to, I think too much eating.

Ellen    Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Rob    And changing diet is a big--that's a big deal. I mean, food is such a part of our lives and such a habit of how we eat and it's comforting--what we like to eat. So changing that is often, you know, usually takes a huge amount of effort. I imagine that it probably was, changed you more than just the eating--that I can imagine it somehow changing in other ways.

Ellen    It did. And also something that I never really thought about--this issue of body dysmorphia, it's something that I also confine myself with that, it's okay to be where I am and to look at myself and not vilify my own body. Yes, I could want my body to look a certain way and I could work towards it, but there's no need to, to be so negative towards myself and my body and how I look. Yeah. So accepting my body as it is, and to have a, just a healthier relationship with food.

I guess with the coffee--it was maybe that relationship was also out of balance--that I was consuming too much coffee. And instead of, you know, having a--a diet that was very varied, that includes a lot of food groups, you know, because I just--just love the coffee so much. So yeah, it was good. Yeah. Also, yeah, for many areas for my life. Yeah.

Rob    Oh, excellent. Good for you. That's fantastic. So that one surprised me because when I did the show with my podcasting partner, coffee was my thing that I enjoy every day. So for you, for the different question, something you let go of that made your life better. So fascinating to see coffee on different ends of the spectrum or something for a different people. But that's wonderful and good for you.

All right. The next question:

What's something simple that brings you joy every day?

Ellen    Something simple that brings me joy every day--I would have to say the relationships that I have with my sisters and also with my partner. I enjoy the conversations I have with them. Whether it is me listening to them or me getting to share my day with them. It always completes my day knowing that I've got these people in my life and I can share my life with them. And even right now where I'm at, I don't have them with me physically. So I rely on, you know, communicating with them via phone. And yeah, so it's--I used to see them every day, and spending our time together, that sometimes even our sentences--like we, we're thinking the same sentences, same thoughts, same issues, you know, would even [??] like, I think we need to move away from each other now because we're into too much each others' thoughts.

Rob    You've become like one being.

Ellen    But definitely they bear, they, they mean a lot to me. And they--they bring so much joy into my life. I know also I bring that joy into their life.

Rob    Fantastic.

So you're destined for science, not for being a seamstress and fashion designer.

Ellen    Yeah. Yeah. It was when, I guess when I fell in love with science and it clicked on me that I don't have to be the one doing the drawing or doing the, you know, the seamstressing or making the actual dresses. I could be the one making the material. And I fell in love with science and how I could make different material for them. And they could, my sister or someone like my sister could design a beautiful ball gown and I could come up with the material that fits in with that ball gown. And then someone like my mom, she could then put the material together and make that. So I, I still, still win that to that dream, but now with what I was good at. But I'm not in the fashion industry now, but I'm a scientist and I make different materials. And yeah, that's where I'm at.

Rob    Wow. And what kind of materials do you make?

Ellen    Yeah. So right now, like the materials that I'm looking at are carbon-based materials. Things like your graphite, graphene, carbon nanotubes, carbon spheres, any carbon based material and using them in different applications in energy and water. So I'm still into materials.

Rob    Excellent. Wow. That's how, and what, when do you remember falling in love with science? What did, do you remember any stories around that?

Ellen    Yeah. So I remember there was a TV show I once watched and there was a lady, she was a chemist. She worked for a fashion company and she was, and I didn't see the link right at that time because I was like, okay. And for me, the first chemist that I kind of knew was this lady on TV. Oh, okay. So it's something called a chemist and they can make, you know, material. And I see it for me, because I thought initially I wanted to be a fashion designer and seeing this chemist lady in the fashion world and it kind of clicked and it made sense. But how I--what got me hooked into science, it was when my parents bought us encyclopedias because I had a love for reading. And reading those different books and consuming the knowledge--that's when I fell in love with it, reading about all the different scientists and the different things that they did. And I said, wow, one day I want to be in the space and to be like, amongst these people.

Rob    Ah, wow. So it's through the encyclopedias, not through school directly where you first got that love, huh? Wow. Because your parents bought you those encyclopedias.

Ellen    Yeah, yeah. They sure made a huge impact in my life.

Rob    Wow. Ah, that's neat. I remember growing up myself that we had a set of encyclopedias and I loved, I loved looking at those. I probably didn't, I don't know if I read a lot, but I just like paging through them, looking at the pictures.

Ellen    Yeah. Yeah. My nephew needs that because we didn't have Google. So that was our Google.

Rob    Yeah, exactly.

Ellen    That's where I used to spend a lot of my time googling through the encyclopedias, doing my homework. So it was a heavy Google.

Rob    A heavy Google, indeed.

And the final question:What are you most grateful for?

Ellen    My health. That's what I'm most grateful for. I'm a healthy individual right now. I've got family, I've got friends. I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for the opportunities that I have. I'm grateful for the people that also have helped me along the way to get to where I am at this point, where they're contributing to my life personally or professionally. Yeah. So I'm grateful for the communities that I have that's around me and that I've built. I'm grateful for this opportunity to be in Canada to experience a different environment, be in a different workspace, to learn from other people.

I love learning new things. There's just something about learning something new. It just also sparks some creativity in you about other things that you might have been thinking about or that you might have challenges with. So yeah, I'm most grateful for that, that I can still learn--that I have communities around me.

Rob    Beautiful. Lots--so much to be grateful for. Good for you.

Okay. Thanks so much, Ellen. I really love talking with you. I'm so excited to get to talk with you again, and this has made my day. It was just wonderful. Thank you.

Ellen    Thank you. Thank you, Rob, for this opportunity and for such a great chat. I really enjoyed this. Thank you.

Rob    Wonderful. Thank you.

Ellen    Thank you, Rob. Have a good one.

Rob    All right. You too. Have a nice evening in Canada.

Ellen    Thank you. You too. Bye.

Rob    All right. Bye-bye.

This has been the Three Answers Podcast. Thank you to today's guest, Ellen, from Johannesburg, South Africa.

In Portland, Oregon, I'm Rob Bednark. Thank you for listening.