How Zolana came to be…

If you’ve ever seen The Littlest Hobo, it’s a Canadian TV series based on a 1958 movie. It first aired from 1963 to 1965 in syndication and was picked up by CTV, which ran for six years from October 11, 1979, to March 7, 1985. It’s about an ownerless German Shepherd who wanders from town to town, helping people in need. Though the people he helped wanted to adopt him, he heads off to the next town at the end of each episode. It was my favourite television program when I was a child, and it wasn’t until years later that I realized I was just like him.

My desire to understand what is happening with our health, and to help others, led me to the Dominican Republic and eventually Colombia, where I continued to help others. This is where I came up with the name.

A young man I befriended in Taganga, Colombia, who lived in a hut on the edge of a hill, didn’t have any money and was barely surviving. He wanted to start his own business, and I asked him what it was and if I could help. He’s from Venezuela and said that he would like to sell arepas, but the way they make them in his country. They have a wider variety of toppings served in larger portions. He wanted to call it “Arepas Venezolanas,” so I designed a business card and had some made. I thought it would be more appealing if the name was shortened so I came up with “ArepaZolana” and he agreed. During this time, I was trying to come up with a name to represent a project that I fantasized, but without any luck I asked God for help. I wasn’t exactly clear on what to call it, yet I hoped my intentions were understood. One day I was looking at the word zolana in the name and decided to see if it meant anything. My jaw dropped when I read what it was. It’s a word of African origin that means if you love someone and they love you back, you have zolana.

Intention with action is key, and for me it is to be a part of a solution that can bring peace and harmony to the world. Habits form with repetition, and if the intention is love for all to partake, we can have that world. With zolana intention, a word starting with the letter Z and ending in A, we can reverse the negativity that has plagued us for millenniums. Therefore, I incorporated the concept into the designs as a subtle reminder to love one another. God bless everyone.