I’ve tried starting this posting about four
times. I have wanted to
write about the most important part of this
trip: the visits with the
different groups we’re visiting but time has
slipped by. And now it’s
past midnight so who knows how far I’ll
get. We are in Luxor right
now, one of the top tourist destinations where
the Valley of Kings is.
It’s hot here – I think on average it’s getting
up to at least 110
everyday (although not as hot as Aswan, closer
to the border of Sudan,
where we were yesterday). I have managed to
upload the pictures from
the visits so far which you can view in the
online album of the trip
here:
http://www.partnersforjusttrade.org/ht/d/Gallery/pid/2860.
So since Friday, we’ve visited seven groups:
the Brass Group in Cairo,
Rawya Group (glazed pottery), Fayoum Soap,
Hosni Group (unglazed
pottery) and Fayoum Baskets in the Al Fayoum
oasis, Nubian Baskets in
West Aswan and Naqada in Qena. I would love to
write about all of these
groups but since I really only see ourselves
working with three or four
of them, I’ll choose to write about those first
and if I have enough
energy, go on with the
others.
Naqada has absolutely beautiful cotton shawls
and scarves that are of
extremely high quality and are so soft. We
visited Nairoz’s house where
he lives with who knows how many family members
including his wife and
two daughters. He’s 80 years old and in
mourning because his 24 year
old grandson died 2 weeks ago (because they
couldn’t gather together
the money for a life-saving kidney operation).
His 41 year old
daughter, Mariam is the apparent leader of
Naqada. They have been
weaving on looms since the time of the Pharoahs
as Nairoz said. The
people in Qena were weaving ferkas to sell
across the border to the
Sudanese (who it sounds like used ferkas for
every special event –
weddings, births, shop openings, etc). So they
changed up the design
and began selling to the local tourist market.
But then the shooting in
’97 occurred so they were forced to find a new
market. In 2002 they
were connected with Egypt Crafts Center in
Cairo. They found someone
who said he’d transport the products to Cairo
for them (Cairo is far
and not an easy trip). They then discovered in
2006 he was marking up
the prices (even though he said he wasn’t) so
they began doing it
themselves despite the grueling
journey.
There are 12 full time
weavers, 6 weavers who work half the day, 5
people who string up the
looms, and 2 people who make the fringes plus a
few that iron the
products. Their shawls and scarves are
beautiful and have a ton of
potential.
Rawya Group
We
visited the Rawya Group on Friday. It was
started by none other than
Rawya herself. Rawya learned how to throw
pottery when she was just a
girl from a Swiss woman named Evelyn. Evelyn
lived in Rawya’s village
in the Al Fayoum Oasis and taught Rawya and
some other young women how
work with clay. Over the years, Rawya fell in
love with pottery and
this love led her to rebel against the
traditional village customs. Her
father wanted her to work on the farm rather
than work in ceramics for
Evelyn and she fought him and convinced him to
allow her to work half
the day for Evelyn and the other half the day
in the field.
At
16, her father had arranged for her to marry
her cousin. Rawya said she
would only do so if the cousin would allow her
to continue working in
pottery and the cousin refused to marry Rawya
(he was married to one of
her sisters instead). She was the first person
in the village to refuse
marriage. Evelyn arranged for her to visit
France for a month to show
her pottery and visit some ceramic workshops
there. Of course, her
family pushed back as it was unheard of to
allow a woman to do such
things but she fought and made her way to
Marseilles.
Rawya met
her husband at around 21 through none other
than Evelyn. Mohamed wanted
to marry Rawya but she said she’d marry him
only if he allowed her to
continue working. He agreed. His house was far
from Evelyn’s workshop
(and I think also because Rawya didn’t get
along with her in-laws who
also didn’t want her to work), they purchased
land closer to the
workshop and moved there.
This part of
the story is a little
hazy but it seems as though after continued
pressure from her in-laws
(who worked on Evelyn’s land – maybe as a
guard/maintenance), she
decided to leave Evelyn and try to start her
own business. She used
half of her kitchen for the kiln and half of
her bedroom for her
workshop space. She even taught Mohamed how to
throw pottery and little
by little they began to sell their products to
different stores in
Cairo. It was a shock for Rawya when the first
store she stopped at
told her that Evelyn had told the store owner
not to buy from Rawya.
But little by little she began making inroads
and getting more
customers. She also heard about an organization
called North South
Marketing Exchange which was starting to work
in Fair Trade. She
connected with them and Egypt Crafts Center and
grew her market even
more with Fair Trade.
Six years ago with
loans from family, she
built a new house with a separate space for her
workshop, kiln and even
a small store (her village in Al Fayoum has
become a tourist
destination, I think mainly for wealthy
Egyptians but maybe for
foreigners, too). Rawya’s group now has six
members in total; all from
the village (two are her brothers).
Each member designs
products although it seems as though Rawya
might have the best eye for
it (but she was the one telling us that!). She
said the natural
landscape and animals are inspirations for most
of their designs. There
were some animals in the bowls and larger
plates that (like donkeys and
cats) that I don’t think would work well but
there are others that are
rather attractive and I think they could do
well in the US market. Some
of the color combinations are stunning and
unique.
Rawya is
one of those people that you meet and you
cannot help but be moved by
her story and feel a deep respect for having
fought an uphill battle
her entire life and come out on top. She’s
managed to have some
auspicious opportunities come her way and
capitalize on those.
However,
I see a few problems in working with Rawya. The
Rawya Group does not do
bookkeeping – they record income to be able to
distribute pay to the
members but do not record expenses. I asked
Rawya why not and she said
that she’s afraid if she does, she’ll find that
she’s not making any
money. That to me is a huge issue and a
fundamental part of Fair Trade
– to ensure that the producers are making a
fair price!
I think that these things
could be
worked through. I told Rawya that I would need
her to start keeping
books in order to be able to work with her and
she said she was willing
to be trained. This is where Egyptian Hands can
come into play. With
their support, we could provide the proper
capacity building with these
groups – that are supposedly a part of Fair
Trade but are missing of
some of the basic principles – and work to get
them fully practicing
Fair Trade (because they are fulfilling every
other standard).
I can’t think straight
anymore. I’ll hopefully most more tomorrow…
