Africa is more than a drum beat...

Africa has become trendy. The NY times recently led their style section with an article entitled "Designing to an Afro beat". The article argued that African clothing, or perhaps "African-themed clothing", is on a rise.

They said "retailers like Barneys New York, mass marketers like American Apparel and (various) designers... embrace pan-African influences, responding, as if in concert, to some far away drumbeat."

The article also cites the costumes in Avatar.

Clearly Africa is moving up in the world.

But the article only considers a small portion of the ways in which Africa has become trendy in the fashion world.

Little did the author of that article realize, you don't even need the those leopard prints to sell Africa to the fashion world.

All you need is an African orphan, or child soldier, and you've got your next trend in the making.

Take, for example, this group. They are making whistles. Stylish ones, of course. For $30 you can buy a regular whistle, or upgrade and for only $10 more and you can buy the "gunmetal whistle". And for one hundred you can get the gold whistle (read the fine print. It is brass.)

Kind of pricey? Don't worry, you don't just get a whistle, you get a story, in the form of the Falling Whistles Journal. Apparently the young founder of this organization traveled to Congo briefly and heard a story about a child who was too small to carry a gun, so they sent him to the frontlines with a whistle...

A number of questions come to mind, and much has already been said about this on the very interesting blog Wronging Rights.

But Falling Whistles is just one of a growing number of companies/organizations selling African charity as fashion. The organization Common Threadz offers to donate a uniform to a needy orphan every time you buy one of their $38 t-shirts. They even have a line of t-shirts called the orphan line. Catchy title, I suppose. The "orphan line" shirts were actually designed by African orphans they tell me. Ok, "designed" might be a stetch. But they did have children draw the pictures.

Yes, it is slightly alarming to have t-shirt lines called the orphan line, but really where is the problem? All of these organizations donate money, or goods, or services, to Africa.

But can't we do one better?

Because, whether we believe it or not, Africa has actual clothing designers and jewlery makers. Where do you think these t-shirts and whistles are made? I'm willing to bet that it is not Africa.

Why do we seem to dream-up products here (and produce them, somewhere else) and sell them in Africa's name? Who are we doing the favor to? Africa probably has one of the highest populations of tailors and seamstresses in the world. They are talented. Given half a chance at fair import/export regulations and decent infrastructure, Africa's sewing industry would take the world by storm. Not to mention their craft industry.

So let's think twice about creating any more products to sell as African charity. Africans don't need our charity. They need us to open our markets to them. They need us to buy their products.

It is nice the way we have figured out how to market charity, and make it trendy. I believe there is a lot of good will behind it. But charity isn't always what people need.

Support the incredible talent of Africa. Visit our store and check out our new products!

BIG NEWS

Just in time for Christmas, SHONA has been given a wonderful gift. There is a full-page article on SHONA Congo in the new edition of BBC's Focus on Africa magazine. Yes, that is it, right there, the impressive magazine pictured above. We are in there!!
See that? Well, maybe you have to squint a little, but that is Argentine sewing.

What? You don't believe me? You want to see it without squinting? You want to actually read the article? You can subscribe to Focus on Africa's digital edition. They offer a free trial edition but I recommend that you splurge on the annual online subscription, which is a fabulous deal for under ten dollars. Either way you will be able to read the article, and a whole collection of other fascinating articles. Focus on Africa is an excellent magazine. It is a great way to read about many of the issues facing Africa today, from African perspectives, in an extremely readable and interesting format. I promise I would recommend it even if we weren't inside! So check it out today. You won't be disappointed!

We deeply thank Nam Kiwanuka, whose column we are featured in. Not only is she a columnist for Focus on Africa, but she is a talented free-lance journalist, director and producer, not to mention a celebrity in her own right. A while ago, SHONA caught her eye. Since then she has worked tirelessly, determined to find ways to tell our story. Thank you, Nam, for believing in us.

SHONA bloopers

Interesting cloth, right? Nice and bright. Very eye-catching. Look...it has little people on it....wait a minute. Exactly what is going on here? Are those scantily clad young women on a bib? Are they serving beer? Yes, I believe that is the famous African Primus beer, to be specific.

Perhaps there has been some mistake. What is this item anyway? Surely it is not what I think it is...a baby bib.

And yet, indeed, it is. This must be the only bib in the world, made out of Primus beer cloth, for your umm...beer guzzling toddlers?!?!?!

Welcome to the SHONA bloopers round. When I asked Roy, one of our craftspeople, to sew some children's bibs, I suppose he thought he was being.. well... thematic. You know food and drinks go together, beer bottles and milk bottles... Or maybe he just thought the design looked snazzy.

I do not think this was his idea of a joke. I am quite sure he sewed these in all earnestness. But I have been giggling for days, imagining the horrified looks I would get if I tried to sell these. Actually I am probably getting horrified looks just for including this in a bloopers round on my blog, but I just had to share it.

One of my favorite parts of working in different cultures, are the inevitable bloopers that result, on both my part and others. I mean if we can't laugh at all those things that didn't quite translate as planned, we'll be in for a long road.

Here is another one...

Last month I opened my latest SHONA shipment to find quite a surprise. Nestled amidst the tote bags and purses was a curious and yet familiar sight. A two pound bag of rice, fresh out of the Goma market.

"Oh no!!!" I exclaimed. "What am I going to do with a bag of rice! I'll have to create a whole new category in our store for "food items"...no that will never work. What about eBay. People buy all kinds of crazy stuff on ebay. Maybe bags of rice from war-torn countries are a novelty item of some sort.... No, probably not."

I mean it. This was a bag of rice, straight from Goma. Well, actually probably originally from Asia. The rice is still mixed with rocks and dirt, so that you can tell it is authentic. I suppose there is no market for it, even on ebay. Certainly not if I mark-up the price to cover what it cost us to ship it. I would have to mark it up at least 10 times over.

And yet my craftspeople sent me a two pound bag of rice. And when I translate it, it turns out to be be just about the most precious of bag of rice in the world.

You see the SHONA women knew that my husband and I returned to the US without jobs, and they knew that getting jobs isn't easy in this economy. They knew that I had been doing everything I could to keep SHONA going, while at the same time relocating and looking for a job. And they knew that we miss Congo. And so they sent us a little rice from Goma, to help along the way. This is the most normal thing in the world to them. They would have done the same thing for a neighbor in the next house, or a relative in the next town over. They share what they have. I am just a little further away.

And I cherish that , because in Goma I often struggled with NOT being like other people. By virtue of my skin color and my passport, I was often seen as the rich American, and to tell the truth, I often was the rich American. I often did have more money than others, and I certainly had more resources. And yet I struggled to communicate to people that I was just another person, like anyone else, that I could run out of money and that I too could get hurt and bleed.

Argentine and Mapendo sent me rice. So what if it cost a ridiculous amount of money to send? Don't worry, I won't be selling it on eBay anytime soon. That two pound bag of rice, which looks exactly like every other 2 pound bag of rice in Goma, is one of my most prized possessions. Everytime I look at it, I smile and am thankful again.

(However if you have any suggestions for what I can do with some beer bibs, let me know!!)

( I must point out that these beer bibs are also incredible examples of hard work at SHONA. Do you see how perfectly centered those scantily clad women are? This is not a naturally occuring phenomenon, this is the result of me insisting time and time again that the design must be in the center! Apparently I never thought to mention that the design should not involve beer bottles on a child's bib. Alas. )

New Crafts

Dear Friends of SHONA,

Just in time for the holidays, we have a treat for you!

Not only do SHONA crafts make excellent holiday gifts, we now offer "one-stop shopping" for all your holiday needs.

How would you like a African Batik Christmas card to go with your SHONA tote bag? Or some Kenyan earings to go with your SHONA dashiki? Or a handcrafted Rwandan basket to go with your cloth placemat set? We have it all and more!


At SHONA we are introducing a new line of crafts called "ONE FOR ANOTHER". Here you can find crafts from Rwanda and Kenya that we have bought in the local markets and are selling to help support SHONA Congo.

We invite you to come and check us out. And give the gift of hope this holiday season!

Merry Christmas!

Dawn, Argentine, Mapendo, Solange, Riziki, and Roy

Preposterous

Christmas is the season for the preposterous.

A king born in a manger.

And so I believe it to be SHONA's season as well.

SHONA started as a preposterous project.

I don't know why I thought it would work.

Who starts in internet-based business in Eastern Congo, on an internet connection that makes dial-up look fast?

Recently I visited a bookstore and looked at the business section, where I found all of these guides for starting small businesses and organizations. They contained chapter after chapter of carefully organized plans, to be created BEFORE starting the business.

hmm...

In fact we are in the business of the preposterous in almost every way. SHONA started by making small cloth bags. I assure you that the idea of shipping small, handcrafted cloth bags out of Eastern Congo, does not strike the average Congolese person as clever. Congo exports gold and coltan, and other precious minerials. Things that are worth their weight in gold, literally. Cloth bags? Not so much. In fact I have hardly ever seen a Congolese person even using a cloth bag. Almost all of the bags used in Goma are plastic bags from China or Western hand-me-down bags.

And so we embarked upon a rather risky venture. And we embarked with some of the most "unqualified" people in the world. I knew nothing about starting a business, and nothing about sewing. And our craftswomen, while immensely talented and determined, are handicapped young women who had never been to school and were easily taken advantage of in other groups. That's it. That is all we started with. There was no funding, no studies, no managers and directors. Just us.

And here is the kicker. Almost three years later. We are still going in precisely that fashion. We still have no outside funding (except a few gifts from friends) and no managers. Each item you see is truly the work of our hands.

Four months ago I returned to the US, with the plan that my husband and I will be based out of New York for the next couple of years. We loved Congo, but we need to be closer to family for a while. And in many ways, in order to continue with SHONA I need to be on this side for a while.

But it was a risk. I left the craftspeople in Congo to stand on their own. The test of a project, is not what happens when the "founder" is hovering over it, but what happens when she is not. Many, many people advised me that I needed to leave a manager or director, a boss of some sort, but I wanted to see each craftsperson operating as her own small business. I think that is the best way to empower the craftspeople and the best way to avoid many of the issues of corruption and mismanagement that doom many groups in Congo.

And the craftspeople have exceeded all expectations in terms of taking ownership for their work. I speak on the phone with them often, but almost all of the details of our work are done through text messaging, believe it or not. The craftspeople are far from computer literate (although this is a goal for the future) but they are well versed in text messaging. So I text message an order to each craftsperson each month. She goes to the market, buys the cloth, works for weeks to sew the order, calculates her earnings for the order in a simple accounting book, and submits that total plus the shipping cost to me via text message. And so it goes. Preposterous, except that it works. Really well.

Of course there were years put into making it work. My relationships with the craftspeople were built over years of living next-door to them and working with them daily, not through text messaging. Without the courses I taught them in math and writing, and without the skills they taught me in sewing and Swahili, this would not have been possible.

But my move back to the US was a risk for another reason as well. I need to work. I have spent the last three years of my life working on SHONA full-time for free. I was able to do that because my husband had a job in Congo and we didn't need much to live on. But life in the US is a tad bit more expensive, and I knew that I would need to find a job, at least a part-time one.

And for that I am sheerly amazed as well. I have just taken a position teaching ESL to women in cooperatives (they have a nanny cooperative and a house-cleaning cooperative). The goal of this organization, as you might imagine, is to empower these women through employment and education. Sound familiar? In many ways SHONA has been a wild divergence from my expected career path, and yet it comes together in surprising ways. This job is a combination of my teaching experience and my experience working with SHONA. In fact my experience with SHONa is probably why I got the job.

And it is a 25 hr. a week job, leaving me time to continue working on SHONA. This is precisely what I needed, but hadn't really imagined that I would find.

Don't get me wrong, a lot of blood sweat and tears go into SHONA. Things don't always line up right the first time around. But I have to say this: I am amazed at how much is possible, in ways that I never would have dreamed. I am, indeed, thankful for this season of the preposterous.

Plane Crash in Goma

This week a plane crashed in Goma. It is neither the first nor will it be the last, in this town where the only major runway is cut short by hardened lava. Many of the planes that fly into Goma are too large to safely use such a short runway, and yet the air traffic continues, because after all, what other option do you have in a country where the roads are often cut off by armed gunmen demanding payment for passage. During the three years we lived in Goma, there were at least 2 fatal plane crashes, and now here is one more to add to the list. Thankfully it appears that all the passengers and crew, as well as the people on the ground, have survived this accident, although some injuries have been reported. In last year's crash many people died not only on the plane but on the ground because the plane plowed into a crowded market area. This time, it appears that the plane did not reach the market area. However, yet again, this should draw serious attention to the fact that Goma's runway is too short, and is situated directly next to Birere, the most crowded market area in Goma.

There are many serious safety issues in Goma which are difficult to address, from the war to the active volcano to the gas in the lake. But one is left to wonder how there can possibly be so much money to facilitate countless flights into and out of Goma each day, carrying both passengers and valuable cargo, and yet no funding to make the runway longer or the airport more safe. The people of Goma already have enough to worry about. Why should they have to fear being run over by an airplane while they sell produce at the market?

The airport in Goma is a disaster. And it is not just waiting to happen. It has already happened. We saw it in 2007. We saw it in 2008. And we see it now again. We ought not feign surprise when something goes terribly wrong.

Below is a report from a young man in Goma, who also submitted the picture above.

"This is to inform you that at approximately 11H55, a CAA commercial passenger aircraft failed to stop on the runway whilst running landing at the Goma airport consequently crushing on to some lava rocks. The air crash was accompanied by a huge sound which reverberated all over Goma town sending a wave of panic amongst the local population.

Pursuant to the air crash, MONUC aviation, MONUC military and UN Security rushed to the scene of the accident for purposes of rescuing the injured and traumatized passengers. It was immediately observed that other than some broken wings, the body of the aircraft's fuselage remained intact and undamaged and there was no fire around the area.

All the 117 passengers on board were safely helped to disembark from the aircraft. Preliminary reports indicate that one passenger was found unconscious whereas 20 others were in a state of shock and with minor injuries and bruises.

Note that the governor of the province of North Kivu, Sir Julien Paluku was aboard this aircraft.

MONUC ambulances helped to transport the injured to the level 3 Hospital in GOMA."

Fast-food Giving (and a word on Kiva's behalf)

"I have my standards
And I am eating them for dinner."

That is a slogan I just read on a Whole Foods shopping bag. At least it went something like that. I didn't actually purchase the bag...or my standards...so I can't be quite sure. But you get the idea.

How thoughtful of Whole Foods, don't you think? They have made it so nice and convenient to have our standards. It we start running low, we can just drive across town and pick some up. But I am starting to wonder if they are being a bit too generous with their standards. I mean does everyone really qualify? If I go and buy a bag of apples at the store, then surely I have earned my standards bag. I mean who can deny that an organic apple has standards? But if I buy a carton of mint chocolate chip ice cream, maybe they should just give me a regular brown bag. Or maybe they could just put a smiley face on it...

In that same Whole Food store I noticed bags of food on display. Each bag had a hand-labeled tag displaying the contents and who had donated them. Presumably they were being shipped off to some needy cause. I enjoyed looking at the carefully selected cereal bars and Thai rice mixes that filled the bags. And as I swiped my debit card (oops.. I admit it...I did actually purchase something....it just was so small I apparently did not qualify me for a standards bag. Perhaps I should have demanded my standards?) But as I was saying...as I swiped my debit card, a picture of Rwanda flashed on the screen, offering yet another way that I could donate money to help feed hungry people...school children I think.

Now don't get me wrong. I have no problem with feeding school children, or donating to food pantries. I just am starting to wonder if it has all gotten a bit too easy.

In this age of convenience have we made our giving just another fast-food convenience? Have we become so consumer-oriented that we have begun to think of giving as a commodity? We want to give, but we want it to fit on our clocks, and in our check-out lines, and don't forget to make sure it is tax deductible.

The problem is that fast-food isn't very good for us. The reality is that the flashiest, easiest to reach, and quickest to consume snack is not usually the most healthy one. And "fast-food giving", probably has much the same problem. If you give a donation to something that looks flashy, is well placed and well advertised, it might be a good thing, but you had better count on a decent percentage of your donation going toward marketing and overhead. It takes money to create that convenient and compelling package.

But that isn't even my real concern. Perhaps we are perfectly happy to consider part of our donation as the cost of making it quick and easy and pretty.

But what happens when we think that we can address the problems of the world, by swiping a card or carrying a bag. Sure we swipe more cards and carry more bags, but do we also begin to believe that this is what social activism should look like?

Charity organizations rely on donations, and spend a significant amount of time and money figuring out the best way to attain them. They cater to our demands as "consumer-givers". We give to help, but we also give for the experience. And they know that. And they want to produce the best "giving experience" for us. The child sponsorship model grew into great popularity in the 90s because it met the consumer demand for personal connection. It provided people with the sense that they could connect to an individual child and make her life better. Likewise the organizations where you can give a goat, or a cow to a family in Africa have similar, personal appeal. But in both cases, the reality is more complicated. Money is not often miraculously delivered to individual families, and goats are not often delivered directly either. Rather donations become part of larger, more complex programs. Both child sponsorship organizations and animal giving organizations have had to go back and explain that the actual money you donate may not go to that individual child, or to buy that individual goat. Often your donation is used as part of a larger program, which may do very good things, but... well, it is not exactly what their slogan said.

The latest organization to struggle with this marketing problem is Kiva, who markets itself as providing direct, person to person connections between small lenders and small borrowers. It is a fascinating idea, but the reality is that your loan is actually processed through local microfinance institutions and does not necessarily go directly to the individual person whose photo you clicked on, as described in this NY Times article and in this blog post. Now this does not make your donation any less effective in the lives of individual people, in fact it means that your donation is being better monitored and better distributed. Ohhh...but we so love clickable photos.

And isn't that the problem? When we support easy, fast and flashy ways of giving, we encourage other organizations to package themselves in this way. We encourage them to simplify the problems for us, and make promises they may not be able to keep. Kiva is an excellent organization with a unique and valuable model. And if we read the information on Kiva's website, the lending process becomes clear, and if you know much about microfinance, the way Kiva is operating makes a lot of sense. In fact it makes a lot more sense than it would if Kiva worked exactly they way people imagined it did. The problems of people around the world are complex, and so must be our part in them.

I recently received a fund-raising appeal from another organization. As far as I know, they are a very good, solid organization that works to treat children with cleft pallets. The back or their envelope featured a big lettered promise that if you made a donation today, they would never ask you for anything again.

Is this really the way humanitarian aid should be packaged and sold? But this is what happens when aid organization find themselves marketing to a consumer market.

And so I worry about the convenience of our society. When I was living in Africa I hated waiting in restaurants. You would sit, and sit and sit. Then they would bring you a soda. And then you would sit and sit and sit. And then they would bring you a platter with a salt and pepper shaker on it. And then you would sit and sit. And about two hours later your meal would come. This never appeared to bother Africans in the least. I guess they were there for the experience. I, on the other hand, was there to eat. And was usually doubled over in hunger by the time the food came.

Since I have been back in the US I have not waited for one meal. I mean I have not once gotten to the point of looking at my watch and wondering where the food is. Sometimes I try and imagine what the trendy New York people sitting at the table next to me would do if their food didn't come for two hours. That always makes me smile.

But has fast and easy food really been so good for us? In his book "Africa Doesn't Matter: How the West Has Failed the Poorest Continent and What We Can Do About It" Giles Bolton
argues that there is a difference between the type of aid that we like to fund, and the type of aid that is most effective. Child sponsorship, and animal giving exist because we, as consumers like them, not because they are the most effective or efficient way of delivering aid. Bolton argues that real change must come from direct budgetary support to poor countries, but you see that got jumbled up in my mouth as I said it. It is hard to make that flashy and compelling, and it isn't readily available in the check-out lane.

How does SHONA fit in this? Did I really just say that we shouldn't think that purchasing a bag will address the problems of the world? I didn't mean a SHONA bag of course!!! I can just see the SHONA craftspeople jumping up and down and gesturing wildly for me to stop my rambling before I scare away our customers. Please don't go away. We desperately need your purchases and they make a very real difference in the lives of 5 incredible people in one of the most difficult regions of the world. And unlike some larger organizations, with us the direct connection is completely real. An individual craftsperson did sew each item and they are receiving 100% of the profit. But stay tuned for my next post, on how these issues do affect SHONA, and in the meantime, I would love to hear your thoughts on the topic.