Learning, Working and Living

I have really learned a lot since leaving DIA only three weeks ago. Our time in India seems like forever ago, yet it was less than two weeks when we left. Nepal is a great, not as hot or slow as India: overall, life and health are good.

I guess you could say we are in the data collection stage of our work. We have been spending more time at Dhaka Weaves, talking with Ratna, the bookkeeper and watching the weavers. It is unfortunate that we don’t speak Nepali, but we do plan to get a translator so we can communicate and interview with the weavers.

Dhaka Weaves hired Ratna when he was a teen to be the floor sweeper; he has been there ever since. After getting high marks in school, he went on to be the accountant at Dhaka Weaves. Now, with Rita and Pritiva both busy with other things, he is the man in charge. It is wonderful watching his eyes light up when he talks about the organization.

We have also been walking around town identifying Dhaka Weaves competitors and potential partners; there sure are lots of weavers out here! The problem is that the price of Dhaka Weaves products is higher than the other products on the market. The quality is much better, but I am afraid that it doesn’t much matter here. Yesterday we spoke with Sunil Chitrakar, the Executive Director of Mahaguthi, a fair trade craft store, and he mentioned that the development agencies kind of messed with the market. They created a training workshop to train people to weave and took this workshop across the country, teaching weaving skills to those who normally or historically wouldn’t weave. Each tribe has a trade, or a craft skill, some are painters, some weavers and some leather workers, etc. Now there are too many weavers and not a very big market. This forces people to ‘dump’ their woven goods into the black market and the price goes down dramatically, sometimes even lower than cost. This creates a nice challenge for us.

Sunil was the founding member of Fair Trade Group Nepal (FTGN). We spoke to him for a couple of hours about his enterprise, experiences and history. It was really fascinating and helped me understand how the fair trade movement started here and where it is headed. It might not be in the best interests of Dhaka Weaves to get certified at the time. Though they are definitely fair trade, the membership costs money and, more importantly, takes time. When an organization becomes a member of FTGN, they must pay for, set up and organize the trainings that are developed. This would take time, energy and money that Dhaka Weaves doesn’t have right now. We guess this means it is time to get creative with the tags and labels. If anyone has a suggestion we are open! Socially Responsible weaving anyone?

We got a phone the other day, but can’t seem to call anyone because the network is ALWAYS busy, go figure. We have been trying to get in touch with Rita for the last couple of days so we can move forward. We have a list of proposals and several ideas, but we need confirmation first. It will be interesting to see how we finally get a hold of her. We have called and stopped by her office several time, that woman is just too popular and sits on too many boards!! If we can’t call her today we decided that we will stop by her house this evening. Wish us luck…So things on the business side are moving forward. Everyday we learn more and more, soon we will start taking action.

The social aspects of life are also going well, our apartment is comfortable, close to the center of town and above the best bakery. One thing that I have learned is that if anything goes wrong in this country, they have a strike and close a road. It is very interesting and nothing seems to come out of it, but they have been doing it for years. There have been three that I know of since our arrival. One, a taxi driver was robbed and killed so most taxis and public buses had a strike the following day. Two, four people were killed in two days on the same part of a road so the friends and relatives of the deceased had a strike and blocked the road. Three, villagers where a landfill is located near Kathmandu want money for their schools, so they are having a strike, blocking the garbage trucks from entering. All said, life for us is not affected by these strikes, in fact we wouldn’t even know about them if we didn’t read the newspaper!