When I went back home to the USA for Christmas, two things happened. I got a huge delivery of medical supplies which I promised to deliver to Soloy in January and my uncle gave me $2500 which enabled me to start buying the bags.
My second trip to the little jungle community was so lovely, like seeing old friends. We had a meeting again with me and all of the artisan women where I was explaining the concept of a livable wage and they were discussing among themselves what a livable wage would be for them and therefore how much they should charge for the bags.
After some hours, they figured that the largest bags should cost $100, medium $70 and small $50. They usually charged $5 to $20 each for them. And then I started sorting. I was looking for bags with exceptional design, and fine stitching. I chose about 7 bags out of the piles they had made in hope of my return. They made note of the bag with each woman’s name. And then I took out the cash. The men had also crowded around and as I started handing hundreds of dollars out to the women, I could hear murmurs of awe and surprise from the men. The women stowed their money carefully and proudly.
I felt like that little meeting already made such an impact. I could almost feel the power shift in the air. A woman who stays home and makes one of her traditional bags can make as much money as a man who leaves the community to work on a far away coffee plantation. It empowered the women and it empowered the craft.
