Reimagine, Repurpose, Reinvent: African Craft Shopping Will Reinvigorate You

Sculpture crafted from discarded aluminum cans; serving bowls created from telephone wire; wine glasses fashioned from Coke bottles; placemats woven from plastic bags, jewelry beads molded from empty wine bottles. Even if you don’t love to shop, you have to marvel at the creativity you’ll find throughout Southern Africa, and the craftsmanship – and determination – that turns discarded trash into treasures.

These beads are created from the discarded wine bottles you see in the background.

The women of Dete, Zimbabwe finds lot of ways to turn trash into beautiful things

Yesterday’s shopping bag is today’s elegant placemat.

The bead molds are made from clay and fired in the kiln

Wine bottles aren’t easy to smash. We’re helping the women get protective eyewear.

Each bead takes work

The Hide Community Trust trains local ladies how to build the kilns and to melt the glass into beads.

Every time Derek and I visit southern Africa (usually twice a year), I always discover a new craft made from re-purposed material. The diversity is astounding. Let me share my most recent experience with a group of 10 women in the rural town of Dete in northern Matabeleland, Zimbabwe. Subsistence farming is the norm here. Many homes are without electricity or what we’d consider basic amenities.

Working with a project created and run by The Hide Community Trust of Hwange National Park, this determined group of Dete’s women are creating some

Discarded wine bottles from nearby safari lodges are given to local artisans by The Hide Community Trust

wonderful glass beads. Here’s how they do it.  Many of the surrounding safari lodges send these ladies hundreds of empty wine bottles that had been consumed by their guests. The women have created a basic kiln, as well as molds of various shapes and sizes.  Using simple metal long sticks, the women smash the bottles and collect the broken glass. (As of this writing, they have no protective eyewear for the flying glass shards or protective gloves – I intend to fix that buy sending protective gear to Zimbabwe.) When the shattered glass pieces are heated inside the kiln, they turn into a molten liquid – which is then poured into the various molds. And voila! The result is lovely glass beads in various shapes and sizes the women use to create all sorts of jewelry.

I treasure the pieces I have acquired from artisans like these, not just for their intrinsic beauty, but for the story of the people and their struggle to wrest an honest living from the things we so flippantly discard. That’s why I, a determined bargain hunter, don’t negotiate too hard when I’m buying from these artists. Every dollar means so much.

You can help The Hide Community Trust enable more women to earn a living by donating here:  https://tbtf.kindful.com/?campaign=233552