Donation drive for Zimbabwe baskets- Batonga baskets.

Please click on the link below to go to my donation page. I'm trying to raise money so the women basket weavers of the Batonga tribe can build up their basket inventory and earn a living being self employed in a region with 90% unemployment.



http://www.gofundme.com/qzu7z8?fb_action_ids=10153175656497834&fb_action_types=og.shares&fb_ref=fb_cr_n


Thank you for any donation and help by sharing this link on your Facebook and twitter accounts and with your friends.

Meet Matabekki Mudenda- Binga Craft Center director.

Matabekki is the Directer of the Binga Craft Center in Zimbabwe, where I lived during my 3 year service in the 1970's during the Rhodesian War/Chimurenga 11.

This is his story.

The short story about Binga craft centre and life story of its current manager October 2014.

                                                 Binga craft centre SHOP as Design Afrika Director moves out of the shop after placing an order in 2008 at the peak of Zimbabwe’s economic crisis when the Zim dollar could not be used in the street.                     

 Background information about Binga Craft Centre.

Binga Craft Centre (BCC) is a community based organization which was established in 1989 at growth point of Binga District in Matabeleland North province of Zimbabwe. The center was set up to help empower the crafts makers of Binga mainly basket weavers on socio-economy status by increasing their income through the sales of baskets and other crafts by sustainably using their natural resources. The centre is affiliated with all artists from all walks of life in the districts that are women, men, grown up boys and girls who are into art and craft. 

The centre is situated in the community that is well known for having been disadvantaged and marginalized for a long time back dating from the early 19^th centuries.  Binga is generally regarded as poor even though the district is has very rich natural resources both flora and fauna. It is these resources which Binga craft centre is encouraging crafts people to sustainably tape or use for the self improvement of life standards. The main activities of the centre are Product design and development, quality control, marketing and natural resources management.  Under product design and quality control, the centre and weavers come together and identify the weak points of the products and together work on improving them. Quality is a must at BCC and products go through a thorough quality control before selling them. This calls for thorough training workshops also for weavers to produce high quality products.  Marketing is also another major arm of the centre. Unfortunately the Binga Craft Centre web site was suspended due to failure by the centre to pay subscriptions to the service provider (CYBERZOL).  Currently the centre is marketing itself through the e-mail contacts.  

The natural resources program is replanting the ilala (Hyphaene petersiana) the palm tree whose leaves are used to make baskets.  The centre established ten ilala palm plantations with over 30 000 trees of  ilala palms growing successfully and weavers are harvesting from them for their basket making .This means the fear of depleting  natural resources is taken care of.

BCC was initially funded by MS-Zimbabwe before becoming MS- Zimbabwe -Action Aid. The partnership with MS – Zimbabwe helped establish all the infrastructure for BCC , establishment of the ILala woodlots/ plantations.  

The recent plantations were funded by Hands Around The World an organization in USA, Lowa state. The Craft Centre is managed by a Board of management which is mainly comprised of Basket weavers and all coming from the clubs of BCC.  The craft centre legally operates as a Trust.   The BCC and MS – Zimbabwe partnership ended in 2006 and by this time the centre was supposed to have been self sustainably.

Unfortunately the Zimbabwean economy had come to a fatally melt down hence the centre currently needs an overhaul attention because it was not spared in the national disaster on the economic collapse for the nation just few years ago. This has grossly affected most industries in the country and worse with tourist centred enterprises like Binga craft centre with low tourist turn up in the country.  This becomes worse for the remote places like Binga district.

However  through perseverance by the two remaining staff after others did leave for green pastures, the centre is making more products with the help of some small grants from organizations like The Culture Fund of Zimbabwe Trust, The New Basket Workshop (TNBW) a South African NGO and of recent the EUNIC Creative Zimbabwe a British Council project.  Below are some products made as additional products from the traditional shapes which all are used to see from Binga:

 

The brief story of  Matabbeki Mudenda the manager for Binga craft centre

I feel it is better to say who I am before being the manager for Binga craft centre a community based craft enterprise. Matabbeki Mudenda is my name. I was born and grew up all my life in Binga. Kariyangwe Mission is my home area. I was born in 1970 at the Kariyangwe Mission Hospital under Chief Siansali residing in the then Manjolo Tribal Trust Land.  I did my primary and secondary school in the same community.  Interestingly, since my birth in 1970 up to1990 when I completed my form four secondary education, I had never in a single day travelled beyond the traditional boundaries of Siansali Chieftainship area.  AS if not enough since 1970 up to date I have never lived outside Binga district for a continuous three months apart from snapshots    visits in various places in Zimbabwe on business, also to less extent regionally in Zambia, South Africa and Tanzania either on the job related workshop trip or in search for food especially in 2008 when nothing could be found in our shops including big supermarkets like TM and OK when only condoms were common products in the shelves and this made me cross the Limpopo to South Africa and I had a two week stay and I came back.  Also on job related trips I did travel to India for a one week stay and USA for Santa Fe International Folk Art Market last July 2014. If resources permit I would like to go to Germany next year in February to attend the Frankfurt Exhibition show and return to Santa Fe in July if accepted and invited.  However the underlining statement is that I am very rural and a typical Tonga rural set up.

I was your during the war of Rhodesia, but one thing I won’t forget  during the war is that I did survive a Land Mine attach from the freedom fighters which was meant to attach the Veterinary  service officers who were coming to dip cattle in Kariyangwe, instead a public bus became the victim of the circumstances , the passed earlier and stepped the land mine and exploded the driver died on spot.  Before he got involved into the attack he had persuaded my father that I should be named after him so that people in Kariyangwe would remember him after he  leaves Binga or dies. Very funny he discouraged my father to take me and my mother to Kamative to visit relatives .  In less than an hour after he left with the Bus and people heading for Bulawayo, we heard an explosion of the land mine, it was the bus torn into two pieces killing the drive on the spot, The Kariyangwe community knew this driver as Matebbeki , I do not know whether this was the first name or surname. From there my name changed from Moses to Matabbeki, my father followed his friend’s request. This driver was a friend to my father.

However when I did complete my Ordinal Level Secondary education I did not have very pleasing results because my family status was very very poor. I used to be sent away from school most of the times in search for school fees while others were learning. However on my first sitting I got three subjects. These were English Language, Ndebele language and Agriculture.  At a later stage I supplemented and got other two subjects, Integrated Science and Geography.   

End of 1991 I got employed with Binga rural district council as a Community Natural Resources Monitor in the then newly established USAI funded CAMPFIRE programme ( Community Areas Management Programme For Indigenous Resources). 

This gave me the opportunity to visit and see some parts of Zimbabwe during training workshops.  We did training at Hwange National parks in Main Camp, Mushandike recreational Park in Msvingo and Chizarira National Parks in Binga.  In all these places we were taught much on basic wildlife management, bush craft, Problem Animals Control, use f fire arms mainly sporting rifles and also we did basic training on fisheries and forestry management.  The forestry management studies made me feel attracted to plants and developed interests to plant trees.  The Binga rural district council and upgraded me to a district Game guard manning the Problem Animal Control (PAC ) Unity.

In 1997 I got the opportunity to get the job which met my interest; I got employed with Binga Craft Centre as a Natural Resources Officer. My primary obligation was to plant as much ilala palms as the Binga craft centre budget would allow me. I did plant more than 30 000 ilala palms in the whole district together with basket weavers.  In 2000 I was made in charge of all trainings needs at Binga craft centre both staff and beneficiaries.  This gave me an opportunity to do a Diploma in Business Administration Specializing in Marketing and Retail Management using distance Learning.

In 2005 the manager for Binga craft centre resigned after realizing that the then donor MS – Zimbabwe a Danish international NGO which was funding the centre had intensions to scale down by laying off some partners including Binga craft centre.  In the same year the Board for Binga craft centre appointed me take the manager’s position to do administration and marketing of Binga crafts and the centre. My exposure made me to greatly love baskets more than the wood sculptures.

What made to share this with you is that I learnt from your document on the net which you wrote in response to Onasis request from you to write about your war experiences of the II Chimurenga in Rhodesia. I realize you love to support the Tonga through buying their Baskets for other a long period of time up to now.  I do love baskets from Binga and Hwange as well.

Fig 04 & 05Other designs with recycled flower bags strands interwoven with ilala leaves.        Fig 06 washing bkts & office bins.       

The above information is just a brief story of Binga craft centre.

New Shipment of Zimbabwe Baskets

Our New shipment of Zimbabwe baskets has arrived at our warehouse!!! 

To place orders: Contact us by email at beads@wildthingsbeads.com

or

call us 530-743-1339

The new Bread baskets are very nice. Deep enough to hold bread loaves.

                                          

And then we also got in some of the coil Ndebele baskets.

J- Me and Guy are the owners of Wild Things Beads, a small family run import business specializing in Czech glass beads and buttons and finding the unusual to bring to their warehouse. They also run working bead tours to Jablonec and Hong Kong. Their warehouse is located deep in the Sierra Nevada foothills of Northern California, and can be reached by phone at (530)743 1339 or on the web at www.wildthingsbeads.com. They are also open by appointment at their warehouse.

New Batonka baskets arrived

Here is a sampling of the new Batonka baskets which arrived in our warehouse !!!

Ånd these are the Bread Baskets. Very nice deep baskets.

These are the coil Ndebele baskets. They are very difficult to get.

Contact us by email beads@wildthingsbeads.com
or call us 530-743-1339

J-Me and Guy are the owners of Wild Things Beads, a small family run import business specializing in Czech glass beads and buttons and finding the unusual to bring to their warehouse. They also run working bead tours to Jablonec and Hong Kong. Their warehouse is located deep in the Sierra Nevada foothills of Northern California, and can be reached by phone at (530)743 1339 or on the web at www.wildthingsbeads.com. They are also open by appointment at their warehouse.

slave trade

Slavery in Africa.

Its funny how things happen. We sell beads, buttons and baskets for a living, traveling around the world to the centers of production to find our unique products which we import into the U.S. and then travel the country selling. Sometimes we stumble upon something that catches our attention and we just have to react.

So it was this year in Tucson at the big Tucson Gem Show. A friend I had met earlier in the year while traveling around the midwest, an ex Rhodesian who imports African art sculptures, was set up in the African Art Village at my suggestion. He had not heard of the Tucson show nor the African Village, and it was a revelation to him. While helping him set up, (actually while getting in his way looking at all his stuff while he set up) I found a file on his desk filled with photo's for sale. One of the photos was of a 1890s era Slave Trade. The picture blew my mind. It was of eight men shackled together at the ankle with their arms linked together. According to my friend, he had obtained the original photo from Government archives in Harare, Zimbabwe while searching for old photographs to print. Besides knowing the approximate age of the photo, he also knew that it was taken in Northern Rhodesia from around the border region of Rhodesia and the Belgian Congo.

What he does not know is the context of the photo. I would like to offer this interpretation.

What we do know is that while England was one of the largest slave trading countries of Europe during the 18th century it abolished the slave trade in 1807. This meant that buying slaves and importing them into England was against the law, but owning slaves was still legal. It was not until 1833 that ownership of slaves in England was illegal. However, it was still legal in other parts of the world, such as the U.S.

We also know that many British leaders and missionaries were against the slave trade, and people such as David Livingston worked hard to abolish it at its source. By the 1890s the British Colonial Office would have been hard at work stopping and preventing such activities in its colonies. Maybe this photo was taken during or immediately after the capture of slave traders and the rescue of these slaves, who would have used the large rivers running from the interior of Africa to the coast of the Indian ocean for loading into ships destined for the New World.
We also know that slave trading was never a part of colonial life in the Rhodesias. Northern and Southern Rhodesia were founded in 1890 by British adventurers such as Cecil John Rhodes and exploited for its minerals and later for agriculture as these colonies became more settled, but by then almost 60 years had passed since the abolition of slavery in England so that industry never happened in Rhodesia.

I also know from personal experience (having lived amongst the Batonga tribe of Western Zimbabwe) whose territory bordered along the Zambezi River north of the Victoria Falls, that slavery was a common occurrence before the coming of the British. I personally saw the results of the tribe attempting to prevent slave traders from capturing their members by scarring their faces, knocking out their front teeth and other mutilations to discourage the traders from selecting them as slaves based on their unattractiveness. I lived amongst the Batonga during the late 1970s,( obviously long after arrival of the British and the stopping of the slave trade by marauding Arabs from Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam,  who came up the Zambezi River), but the practice continued up until that time. I left in 1980 after the war of black independence (Chimurenga) and the country became Zimbabwe, and when I returned in 1993 there was no sign of the self mutilation continuing amongst this tribe. Hopefully the capture of tribal members by slave traders has been erased from the collective tribal memory forever, never to be repeated.

This photograph is a significant historical picture, definitely open to interpretation, contextually very sad, but worth recording and discussing.

J- Me and Guy are the owners of Wild Things Beads, a small family run import business specializing in Czech glass beads and buttons and finding the unusual to bring to their warehouse. They also run working bead tours to Jablonec and Hong Kong. Their warehouse is located deep in the Sierra Nevada foothills of Northern California, and can be reached by phone at (530)743 1339 or on the web at www.wildthingsbeads.com. They are also open by appointment at their warehouse.

New shipment of Batonka baskets arrived 7/2013

Well, the Tucson Gem Show 2012 is over, and what a successful show it was. We almost sold out of all our beautiful Batonga baskets. All our huge laundry baskets, and over 1000 large, medium and small baskets went home to new owners or gift shops to be sold later.

Now I have to buy more. The ladies in Zimbabwe will be pleased.

One idea J-Me and I have is to plan a basket buying trip to Namibia and Zimbabwe and offer this trip to some of our customers as a tour. Wild life photo safari, basket and carving buying opportunity, Victoria Falls viewing, an African adventure!

                                                     We'll keep you posted.

J- Me and Guy are the owners of Wild Things Beads, a small family run import business specializing in Czech glass beads and buttons and finding the unusual to bring to their warehouse. They also run working bead tours to Jablonec and Hong Kong. Their warehouse is located deep in the Sierra Nevada foothills of Northern California, and can be reached by phone at (530)743 1339 or on the web at www.wildthingsbeads.com. They are also open by appointment at their warehouse.