At Church Square on a small table you will find bottles that have been made into hookahs, a uni- or multi-stemmed water pipe for smoking.

After receiving Allan Gray scholarships, Rhodes students Nicole Viljoen, Mia Arderne and Apollos Hangula were required to start a business that would run for at least five days, explains Hangula, a second-year BCom student.

The group of three decided that considering that many Rhodes students already drank and many have taken up smoking a hubbly as a social activity, they would produce hookahs and hookah cases from recycled material.

Bottles from the Rat and Parrot and Lounge Around are used, as well as coins and spray paint. Metal plates, heads and pipes are bought in Port Elizabeth. The hookah cases are made out of cardboard boxes bought in East London and decorated with spray paint and markers.

“Allan Gray gave us boxes to put all our things in during the workshops and one of the women, Nabila Mulla, turned hers into a bag. That is where the idea sprang from,” says Viljoen, a second-year BA student.

The stall is called Nabila’s Hookahs. “The hookahs are eco-friendly and needed a lot of research to get right,” says Ardene, a second year BA student. The group started producing the hookahs three days before the Festival.

The hookah prices range from R120 to R160 and all profits are donated to the Corner House, a home for the mentally disabled. “In Grahamstown, most people give to HIV/AIDS and mental illness is often forgotten,” says Arderne.

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