January 2005
Once again, a huge thank you to you all for supporting ‘Pachipamwe’ in 2003 and because of the late arrival of this bulletin, I also now have to thank you for your support in 2004 as well!! There are reasons but no real excuses for the belatedness of this Newsletter and for those of you who have been waiting patiently, my apologies. To those of you who open your homes so generously and hospitably and use your friendships and networks to find customers for Pachipamwe, ‘thankyou’, however sincere, seems totally inadequate. Pachipamwe would be nothing without you.
Thankfully, my advancing years and occasional senior moments make me forget how I feel at the end of each of the “slightly over ambitious” sales schedules . I empathise with Steve Redgrave saying that he could be shot if anyone saw him tempted to row again……
2003 Sales Season Bulletin
The shipment was hugely delayed for all manner of stupid reasons and the container eventually rolled onto the driveway early October and I set about the mammoth task of sorting, cleaning and pricing everything. Those of you who came over in those early days to help were the only reason I found the strength to do it. As you know, I was TOTALLY overwhelmed!! I’m sure there’s a book to be written sometime – an Adrian Mole of all the things that go wrong. When you are buying in the sunshine of Africa you forget about November weather, traffic jams and that there are more hours of darkness than daylight. Many of my most generous hosters had the headless chicken version of me arriving late and dishevelled after unbelievably long journey times even setting out at crack sparrow. On several occasions I was blessed to find the supporting hand of a willing husband braving the elements, schlepping plastic boxes and metal birds (at times there are no adjectives left to describe the latter!). My dawn door drops to my neighbour Anne of items needing packaging during the day must have been a sight for sore eyes. Less amusing driving moments included being stuck in a muddy field fully loaded and hitting a very large pothole not far from home – 2 new tyres, 2 new wheels, a bill of £900 and a 5 hour wait for the AA to tow me to Chipping Norton. Meantime some of you were waiting on Marchie’s doorstep near Tewkesbury and generously waited until some of the goods could be ferried from my car. The sale was largely conducted by telephone, with my neighbour Anne relaying Thermos flasks of coffee to me and Volvo –sitting whilst I trekked to the Farm Shop to go to the loo!! The good news is, Oxfordshire coughed up for the car damage and Marchie had an excellent sale!! I ‘triumphantly’ made it through to the last sale and there was certainly no need to go to the gym! My family were hugely supportive but eternally grateful that it had come to an end. I managed to get a slight dose of shingles for Xmas, so discussions on how I would continue in 2004 were not on the agenda.
2004 Brief Review
In March I decided for the first time to mail an invitation to an end of season sale – partly to see if anyone would brave the wilds of North Oxfordshire and secondly to see if I could further reduce the stock as Richard was running a three line whip on ‘no more containers until you get rid of some more of this!’ By the way, I now have a lovely space to store everything at home and I have decorated a couple of rooms in an annexe with furniture and design elements from Zimbabwe , which gives a much better idea of how things will look in an English home. Most people who come seem to be really impressed with the quality and variety, so if anyone is passing by and wants to have a look, do give me a call. What the sale did make clear was that if I wanted to bring in a container again, I would have to do public sales again or resign myself to taking perhaps 2 or 3 years to reduce stock levels selling from home. Of course this doesn’t help the craft workers to feed their families on a regular basis, so in April I went back with some trepidation only to find myself sucked into the cycle of buying, inspired as ever by the indomitable spirit of all the blacks and whites with whom I work. I did however make a management decision to ship earlier and avoid the October debacle, although inevitably newly discovered items were still being made. The container was packed early May and arrived at Tyte Court on a fine day at the end of June. Of course things went wrong (not being able to get money for starters) and there were still lots of things left behind, but I thought at least I’d have a few months grace to try to find an economical way of getting them here. They eventually left Harare mid August, via a four month holiday at the docks in Beira , Mozambique (tides were not conducive to ships docking…or that is the official line…) and arrived here on January 10th 2005. It was yet again a nightmare financing everything and I have only just completed the 2003 accounts because they are so complicated. Almost every transaction was at a different rate of exchange and 2004 was no better. Heaven only knows what will happen this year with over 750% inflation. I have however continued to keep the education funding rolling on the basis of the profit I’m ‘pretty sure’ I have made. Richard finds this totally unscientific, but if I waited until the accounts were done, I’d never fund anything!! After the angst of 2003 and so much money being stolen, I managed to engineer another way to get the money in which leaves me less sweaty (I think). The situation with illegal foreign exchange dealing had become extremely serious when I was there in April. A government minister became a sort of fall-guy for illicit dealings and from then on people were ‘shopping’ each other at every opportunity and some people I know were unable to return to Zimbabwe for fear of arrest. The feeling that everyone was looking over their shoulder was most unpleasant. Phones were tapped, e mails intercepted, people followed – and indeed I was never sure myself who was watching me. Clandestine meetings in cafes and car-parks, billet douxs for IOU’s!! Some larger denomination monopoly money had thankfully been issued, so it was less obvious that one was carrying a couple of million than the previous year. With 600% inflation, price rises were just staggering. It cost more for a pint of milk in Harare than at home and a bottle of South African wine retailing at £3.49 in Sainsbury’s was £13. Electricity, fuel, rents – you name it, everything had gone up shockingly. All my contacts are really feeling the pinch and you have to wonder just how long they can keep tightening their belts. Running businesses is a nightmare and the unions are now involved with ‘package’ negotiations which will see many people go bust or head for the hills.
Funding 2004
Boromo School
Sadly I have had to keep a low profile. A rather powerful local lady decided that she fancied the land and spent a lot of time and energy broadcasting that the funding received at the school was a white plot to undermine education in Zimbabwe . Needless to say my head went below the parapet. I understand she hasn’t got the land and the school is still there. More later this year.
Mothers of Disabled Children
I have continued to support this particular group with materials and to pay their bus fares to get to the centres. I decided to invest in some larger items and to encourage them to embroider more exportable goods. To this end I had 5 cotton aprons made and left them with them in April, assuming they'd polish them off fairly quickly and that I'd then be able to place a proper order if they turned out well. The original five were eventually finished in December after weeks of stitching. They are works of art but ended up costing me over £20 each!!! Back to the drawing board.
Vocational Education
I am funding three girls over 2 years to get vocational training. I pay their bus fares, fees and exam fees. Unfortunately one of them has just lost her mother and is now head of the family, but I think she will continue to study. All three are keen to succeed and will hopefully be successful and be the ‘next generation’.
Shout Ketani
Shout is a young man living on land near Ruwa. He was introduced to me by one of my suppliers who felt he should be considered for support. He is an orphan with a seriously handicapped brother and his aim is to be successful enough to support his brother and keep them as a family. He is clever and capable and it was suggested he would benefit from going to boarding school to study engineering. This involved the purchase of trunks, clothing etc etc and the up front payment of huge fees but all seemed to be going well until he came home after 3 months literally starving and the school began to extort further massive amounts of money for his continuance at school. Another sad story of white involvement not being wanted. That is one of the problems – not knowing whose side locals are on. Also any sniff of money is encouraging corruption with an increasingly desperate population. Shout is back where he came from in Ruwa and I will have a meeting when I go out there to see what can be recouped from the situation.
There are lots of other minor projects which I continue to fund and an endless list of others waiting! I am talking g with the local branch of the Soroptimists who fund raise for lots of worthy causes about giving them some money for a couple of specific projects and I should know more about that when I visit.
Library Box Scheme
This has been a huge success and I will continue this again this year.
As usual I leave further funds with friends to help the odd tragedy on their doorstep and to buy medicine (if available) for those who are needy.
2004 Sales Season
This began early with several successful open days at home. It was rather force majeur as I had slightly overboarded on the purchase of metal birds and with the arrival of English summer they were corralled into a huge Party Tent in the garden. For those of you who came, I’m delighted to say that their numbers have reduced to a large cardboard box!! Unfortunately the shingles of December 2003 revisited in a rather major way at the end of September, so I wasn’t on top form this year. Having said that , I did make it to the end but sadly had to cancel a few sales because I ran out of quite a few of the smaller gift items and the delayed shipment was nowhere in sight. Apolgies to those of you who were disappointed.
2005 Outlook
I am not sure what will happen in 2005. Will I find new products to entice you, will you continue to support me or will I,( in my worst nightmares), be left with a container load of handicrafts? Have I had my slice of good fortune, will the bubble burst? I admit to some anxiety and soul searching!!! Meantime, in optimism, my son Ben has just built me a web-site www.pachipamwe.com where you can see most of the products. I shall have a sale from March 12 – 16 th, 11-4 daily at Tyte Court to try to reduce the volume of stock and to sell some of the delayed shipment. I plan to go to Zimbabwe in April, so if you want to order furniture or garden items or anything heavy please think about it now as I think there will only be one shipment.I am always trying to think up new dieas, so all inspirational thoughts are welcome! Some of the craftpeople with whom I have been working have left over recent months. Laura who makes the linens is under threat of eviction (and death) and who knows what will happen if there is the planned election in March. So far no date has been fixed but there is a lot of Zanu activity – stock-piling maize, trying to fix the money situation superficially etc etc as part of a pre-election activity. Mugabe, to ensure his own survival, has skilfully divided the country: first Shona against Ndebele, then blacks against whites, then Zanu against MDC. Or maybe he has just succeeded in exploiting the divisions with which history has richly furnished Zimbabwe . Meantime he has convinced much of the African Union that he is waging a just struggle against neo-colonialism and is righting the wrongs of the past by getting rid of the whites. He fails to mention that he has got rid of over 600,000 skilled blacks to the UK alone, let alone the million plus Zimbabweans in South Africa and all the others in Australia and the USA . He has created an export market of Zimbabweans with skills. Many black merchant bankers are sitting in exile in London . The number of émigrés is so great and the economy is now so dependent on foreign currency remittances from Zimbabweans abroad, that the Governor of the Reserve Bank goes on fund raising trips to the UK to propose preferential exchange rates to Zimbabweans prepared to change money through the government banking sector. The state is organising its own black market! Many skilled middle class have left – at the end of the day Mugabe knows it is easier to be in total control of a country of ‘peasants’ or people who depend on him for patronage. But at the same time, he also knows that through the rule of fear, the dictator also lives in fear, and that fear means you can never give up power, for fear of what will happen to you next. I’m not holding my breath for any short term solutions.
Many thanks once again for your continuing support.
Jane Stillwell working with African craftspeople
Tyte Court , Great Rollright, Oxon OX7 5RS
01608 737517 01608 730574(fax) 07710 385032
info@pachipamwe.com or janestillwell1@aol.com
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