Paper into Pearls

Paper into Pearls

14^th October 2006
"Malcolm," said the plump-breast-loving-driver-of-big-trucks.

"Malcolm," he said again for emphasis, "Always know your market."

He obviously loved plump breasts. Why else would he forever be trading in wives (girlfriends?) for younger, newer models whose breasts hat not yet been depleted by feeding his young?

You only had to look as his equally new oversized truck - that could tow his boats up the Kilmog hills of Otago - to know that he knew his market and was milking it for all its worth.

He was a self-made man and proud of his blue-colored approach. Jeans and a shirt were suitable for meetings with those dickheads at the Chamber of Commerce. He'd earned respect, though not admiration. "I don't like him," said the son of one of his workers to me. "He is rich, but all his employees are poor." Wealth was a thing to be acquired, not to be shared.

An employee who had undergone quadruple heart bypass surgery, while his wife slowly wilted from cancer, got understanding from him, but no sympathy. "It's sad," he would say, but what stop short of stating what was really on his mind, "It's sad, but it's not my problem."

It was good advice that he gave to that up and coming capitalist. Knowing your market is a good way to make money.

Most people in Buvunya do not have access to a market - the transport costs are just too expensive

The Village of Buvunya
Buvunya is a twenty minute boda-boda ride from the main road that connects Jinja to Mukuno and is home to about one thousand souls. The boda-boda drivers wear backwards jackets to stop the dusty roads giving their shirts a copper like sheen. I like this boda-boda ride - so much better than the madness of the city. Small children rush from mud huts and chant "Bye Mzungu! Bye Mzungu!" at you. Why they greet you with a "Bye" is a mystery for another time. The petrol conscious boda-boda driver will stall his engine as you roll down the hills - the soft clatter of the tires on the gravel is noise most suited to the quiet serenity of the sugar cane fields. The driver drops his clutch, and the pleasant clatter is replaced by the whine of an abused engine.

On this particular journey I have two companions with me. The first is Rose. She is coming to the village with me to teach the local ladies how to turn paper into pearls. Rose is a Ugandan and is happy to give her time freely. She doesn't know it yet, but I will paying all her transport costs and will be giving her ush5,000 ($NZ4.15) for her time.

The pearls are beads that we will turn into necklaces, bracelets and earrings. I've bought along all the necessary materials: Poster paint, plastic beads, varnish, glue, scissors, rulers and pens. Rose will show them the magic spell that will turn all of this into a marketable product.

GVN - the organisation I volunteer through - publishes articles about cool projects that volunteers are doing. The articles appear both on their website and in email newsletters. Yours truly featured in one such article. grassrootsuganda.com is a website I am putting together to sell the jewelry. I am opening up a market to them that they wouldn't of had otherwise. I figure the story of how grassrootsuganda.com came into existence is a good one and worthy of a GVN article. It will also let community minded people know about a website that they can support impoverished African women through. Know your market.

This is where my second companion Spike (Erina to her mother) comes in. Spike is from England and is a buddy journalist. I asked her to write the article for GVN newsletter and she jumped at the chance.

The Training
The training itself happened over three days in the house of one of the ladies. Rose patiently told taught how to measure and cut the paper, roll the paper into beads, dip the beads into the varnish, dry the beads in the sun, sort the beads into similar styles and finally thread them all together to form the finished product.

Spike made the comment that the eyes of the women seemed to light up as they realized they could turn seemingly worthless paper into something of value.

I felt like an expectant father as I watched the ladies make the craft. All of my ideas and plans would come to naught without product, and now - finally - I was seeing it all come together. It felt good.

Part of my marketing plan to sell the crafts is to include a picture and a story from one of the ladies. You will never see a craft item without seeing a lady as well. Kinda like the way those World Vision advertisements work: You don't have to save the whole world, you just have to save one woman.

A lot of my time at the village was putting together the stories of the women. Their stories are documented here if you are interested in reading them.

Moving On...
I was most pleased with how the village visit went. The ladies liked that they had something meaningful to do and I got some stock to sell.

The son of the ladies house we stayed at is called Vincent. Vincent is a good guy and works for MACRO. I will be paying Vincent to coordinate things in Buvunya when I leave the shores of Uganda. This is all part of my plan to keep grassrootsuganda.com going when I go. Vincent will:

Pick up the supplies from Kampala
The plastic beads, earring hooks, poster paper and so on.
Bring the stock back to the grassrootsuganda.com base in Mukuno
Not quite sure where this is going to be yet.
Bring the money back for the ladies
Some trustworthy soul - not sure who yet - will pick up the money from somewhere like Western Union and place the money in a sealed grassrootsuganda.com envelope along with a breakdown of the payment.

I will tell the ladies that if the money arrives in anything other than a sealed grassrootsuganda.com envelope then something has gone wrong and some sticky fingers have been involved.

Vincent will get about ush5,000 ($NZ4.15) + transport costs for any errands he runs. To keep this figure in context, Boda-boda drivers earn about ush3,000 ($NZ2.49) a day for themselves and ush5,000 ($NZ4.15) a day for the owner.

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(c) 2005 and 2006 Malcolm Trevena.
All the stuff on this site is written by me, Malcolm Trevena. Feel free to link to this page. Heck, you can even copy stuff from here if you want. Just make sure you sight me as a reference.