Insecurity

One of the hard parts of life in Congo is the "insecurity".

We use this term often to talk about the sense that Congo somewhat teeters on the edge of violence. Fighting could always break out, armed robbers could always show up at night.

But the insecurity amounts to more than that.

We have a friend who is a poor farmer, in a rural region. He owns a small piece of land next to a big piece of land owned by an important person. And so he stands always on the brink of losing his small plot of land, his only livelihood.

Last week, people came onto his land and began taking his crops. He complained. And so he was put in jail for a week. He just didn't have friends on the right side, and someone else did.

His extremely poor family then spent the week buying the guards beers and handing off cash trying to get this elderly man moved to a less harsh prison.

Eventually they borrowed enough money to pay the system off, and get him out of prison. What will happen with his land is unclear.

And this is precisely the insecurity with which many Congolese live everyday. That which they have can always be taken away.

In the grand scheme of things, all that anyone has can disappear in an instant. None of us are guaranteed tomorrow. All of our lives are in fact, teetering on the edge.

But here in the US, we live with the illusion of security. And with some sense that only God, or a huge natural disaster or some other force beyond our control, can rip out of our hands that which we believe is ours.

It is a different type of insecurity to know that the people living next to you can do the same.

Check out our all new summer stock!

We can't fit all the pictures here.
So check it out at www.shonacongo.com

The New Workshop!

Check Out Our New Home!

It is a humble little workshop, but one we are very proud of!

The SHONA women saved their money and bought this land.
(Only the part up front! That is a school yard back there!)

And together, with your donations, they have built this workshop.



It has cement floors, wood walls, and a tin roof.

We prioritized buying good windows and a decent door, both for security reasons and to let in the light, since the workshop does not yet have electricity.





You'll notice the entrance to the workshop has a cement ramp, making it easy for the women to walk, and the outhouse is also easily accessible.


Whenever the women try and rent space, they face serious challenges finding space that is easy for them to walk without falling. So it is a special blessing to build their own place, because even with very limited funds, they can make the small alterations which make a big difference to them.

We are deeply proud of this workshop. The fact that the women were able to save their money on their own and buy this land is visible proof of their independence, wisdom and determination to create change in their own lives. They are amazing women and they are quietly re-imagining what is possible for young women in Eastern Congo, not to mention disabled women.

We are also deeply proud of this workshop because it represents what we can build together. We could not have built this workshop without the donations of our friends. In the midst of a difficult economy, you have chosen to support a very small group of women half way around the world.

Thank you for your support!
It fills us with hope!

Our future

The bad news is that the SHONA women are homeless again. Almost.

The good news is that we have a plan.

But we need your help.

We need to build a small workshop right away. The SHONA women are being forced to leave their current home and workshop within the next week. I know, I know, they just moved into that space. And they loved it. But this is the problem with renting in Goma. The landlord decided he wanted to build a hotel there and told them they need to leave "tomorrow!!"

Without your help they will have no where to work.

But you can play a huge part in our future by helping us build a workshop. You can put a roof of their heads, literally. You can buy the wood that will build the walls. Or the door that will keep them safe.

Here is the great news: this workshop will stand for years to come. It will be built on land that the SHONA woman have already purchased, through the work of their own hands. It is a small piece of land, but they bought it themselves. It will be a humble workshop, but one we have built ourselves.

100% of your donation will be used to cover the construction costs are listed here.

Sometimes we have to stand for the things we believe in.

If you like what we do. If you believe in the SHONA women

Please support their future.
Check it out here.

A Little Shorter

" Tuko na problem"
"we have a problem.

You can imagine the sinking feeling in my stomach, when Mapendo started out the conversation this way the other day. She went on to say...

"We think you made a mistake. Remember how you told us to shorten those wrap skirts? We tried to shorten them, but it just won't work! They are already so short! I tried one on..."

At this point Mapendo burst out into embarrassed giggles as she recalled the scandalous length of our summer wrap skirts. The ladies were sewing knee-length wrap skirts for the summer, but every time I thought we had agreed on a nice, summery knee-length, the skirts started creeping a little longer. Inch by inch, they were becoming more like 3/4 length skirts.

It reminded me of the teenage girls on the subways in New York, heading off to Catholic school in their plaid skirts. Every time you glance back at those girls those little plaid skirts seem to get shorter and shorter. They do it so gradually it is hard to be sure. But I am guessing when those girls walk out of the house in the morning, those skirts look quite modest, and by the time they are well into their afternoon commute, the skirts have become nothing short of scandalous.

The SHONA ladies, who are barely more than teenagers themselves, are fighting that same battle. Except in the opposite direction. And on your behalf. Although I have explained to them that a knee-length skirt is still quite modest in this country, the women are concerned about your reputations and eager to cover up those knees a little bit more!

At any rate, after serious promises that our skirts were by-no-means considered short in this society, I extracted a promise that the ladies would resist the urge to add an inch or two here or there. So come and check out our collection of "summer length" skirts and wraps. They really are great for the warmer weather, and we're pretty sure that, thanks to Mapendo, your knees won't be too scandalized.

A New Documentary

Teaching English to adults here in Brooklyn, I work with mostly Spanish speaking immigrants. Then I go home and call the SHONA women in Goma. The transition from Spanish to Swahili, can be a bit confusing sometimes. In the past year, I think Argentine and Mapendo have heard me increasingly throwing in words like "bueno", in the midst of a sentence in Swahili. It never seems to throw them though. Congo, if nothing else, is a country quite comfortable with mixing languages, even unfamiliar ones.

But mostly I find the connection between my students here and the women in Congo surprisingly close. They're all trying to find a way to build a better life. For themselves and for their families. I suppose that is what we are all doing. They've left their homes, their comfort zones, and each step forward also poses a new question.

Which is why I am looking forward to watching the new documentary on PBS tomorrow night.

It is called "Pushing the Elephant" and it follows the story of a Congolese refugee, a woman who fled to the US with 9 of her 10 children. It follows her story years later, caught between here and there. Moreover it follows her story as she is reunited with the daughter who was left behind.

It seems to me that all of our lives are part of this struggle. This struggle to merge the past with the future and come out with a world that we can live in.

Pushing the Elephant was made by a program called Women Making Movies. I haven't seen it yet myself, and from the trailer I can see that there are difficult political and ethnic questions bubbling under the surface. But it poses an interesting question and I will definitely be tuning in.

Check it out Tuesday night, March 29th, on Independent Lens on PBS.

Our Wholesale Order

As some of you may have noticed, I seem to have disappeared.

Sorry about that. I have not actually so much disappeared as I have been trapped in my house, literally. There have been so many boxes, as we have been assembling our first large wholesale order, that I could barely see my way out of the apartment.

But finally we have been able to ship the boxes on to our wholesale customer, and that is who I would like to introduce right here.

Check out www.globalgirlfriend.com and you will find an online, fair trade store. The store was started in 2003 by a woman named Stacey Edgar. It sells fair trade items made by women around the world and is a great way to support small projects with all kinds of different purchases.

I must admit I am a cynic. People often mistake me for an optimist because I do things like start SHONA, with nothing but what appears to be blind hope.

But actually, when it comes to "do-gooder" operations I am often the biggest cynic of them all. I have seen a lot of programs that don't do what they promise to do, and a lot of broad claims about changing the world that translate into something else entirely on the ground.

So I am happy to recommend Global Girlfriend to you. They started as a one woman project, and have grown to over a million dollar enterprise. Yet still they are interested in working with us, as tiny as we might be. In fact Stacey Edgar herself has more or less bent over backwards to work with us, to help support us.

So check out their website and buy something that truly does support women around the globe. Or buy Stacey's new book which even has a small section on Argentine (check out the beginning of chapter 2, to see Argentine make her print debut!)


And send our many thanks to the people at Global Girlfriend for taking a chance on small group of women in Eastern Congo!