Abiba Biao photos
Mariam Jafaru: From nurse to boutique owner.
Gold-plated bracelets join clothes and other accessories in Jafaru's storefront.
Even during the slow hours of business, Zongozon owner Mariam Jafaru’s hands were always busy. In the back of her store, a soft whir of the sewing machine commenced as she fed it her cloth.
Jafaru’s African boutique, located at 43 Whalley Ave. and part of the Shops at Yale, has brought a pop of color to Whalley. Piles of fabrics and sewing needles in Jafaru’s workspace demonstrate the array of their possible products — from bonnets to bags to dresses, all laid out neatly in her storefront.
The boutique sells prints, jewelry, and clothing. Since its June grand opening, Zongozon has operated as a space where Jafaru can share with customers her sewing — a practice she has been honing since she was a child in Ghana.
“I like sewing,” she said in an interview at Zongozon earlier in September. “I’m somebody that when I see clothes, I know how it’s made, easily.”
Jafaru originally wanted to enroll in fashion school when she first immigrated to America, but she changed her post-secondary plans to focus instead on career longevity. She wound up going to Gateway Community College and becoming a registered nurse.
Now, after working in nursing for 16 years, Jafaru’s finally returning to her dreams of fashion.
While Jafaru has long made clothes for herself and even sold bags back home in Ghana, it wasn’t until eight years ago that she thought to use her skills more seriously as an entrepreneurial venture. She had the idea to make nursing scrubs and uniforms in African print.
In 2019, she spotted the vacancy sign on 43 Whalley, but then the pandemic hit. It wasn’t until a few years later that she knew it was time to take a leap of faith: she called and secured the keys to the place. The store then took on a life of its own, expanding to include jewelry and accessories in its offerings. Jafaru wanted to “embrace everybody” and expand her clientele outside of nurses.
For Jafaru, providing a wide variety of products would encourage people to come look and find new ways to express their fashion.
The name “Zongozon” is a combination of “Amazon” and the Hausa word “Zongo,” which refers to diverse towns in West Africa. She put the words together to encompass her wide product selection and welcoming spirit towards visitors.
“Everybody is on Amazon now and Amazon opened opportunity for a lot of people, and it’s a business that has everything. So I compare that to our Zongo, that is like a place that everybody is in. Every tribe, every person, everybody — it’s like a diverse city,” she said.
“We want it to be like a place that we have everything. When you come here, everything that you want to have from Africa, we have it here so that you can grab and go.”
It’s tough work running your own business, Jafaru said. “The biggest challenge is, I miss home. You know, you have to be here all the time. Being your own business, you always have to be around. Since it’s a new business, I haven’t employed anybody to work for me, I work myself.”
Not only does she hand-make items such as bonnets, but also beaded bracelets, anklets, and necklaces. She also accepts custom clothing requests. The clothes she sells are sourced from West African countries including Ghana, Mali, and Nigeria.
She’s also partaking in pop-up shops across the state to get the word out. Despite the struggles, Jafaru enjoys the challenge.
While she cements her place in New Haven, Jafaru also wants to dive deeper into her nursing career, and she plans to enroll in online classes at Southern Connecticut State University and earn her Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing.
Dashiki print scrubs.
