Thanks to Diana for sending this link from CNN, where Christiane Amanpour just did a story about justice, forgiveness, living wages…
Amanpour’s story is at once a testament to the remarkable reconciliation efforts happening in Rwanda, both on official levels and at the grassroots. She tells the story of Iphigenia Mukantabana, who weaves “peace baskets” for Macy’s and who has become friends with the man who killed her family. (On that note, if you’re not clicking the story to open in a new window so you can be sure to read it when you finish here, I don’t know what you are doing.)
Mukantabana and the man she has befriended both credit the gacaca process with paving the way for reconciliation of their kind, which is a nice note of hope as those traditional courts tie up their work this year.
Amanpour also says that
Macy’s sold the first “peace baskets” in 2005 and officials say the deal generates between $300,000 and $400,000 a year. A Rwandan weaver can earn about $14 per week — a king’s ransom in a country where so many live on less than $1 per week.
Notice that she doesn’t directly say that Macy’s pays the weavers $14 a week—which means they might pay them more, which means that what I’m about to say might just be crabby.
But these baskets go for, on average, about $50 a pop. One goes for $75. I don’t know how long it takes someone to make them, but I do know that $14 is not quite a third of the price of one basket. (I also know that, while a “king’s wages” to the rest of the country, $14/week in Kigali makes you poor.) Presumably these folks are making at least a few baskets a week… So where’s the rest of that money going?
Possibly shipping–the price of anything imported here always chastens me to think about how much Rwandan exports cost when they land on our shores. I’m trying to say that I’m not just being glib.
I’m more…thinking aloud.
And offering the opportunity for anyone who wants to pay Macy’s prices directly to the weaver to get in touch with me. I’ll import for you for free.
OK, I am just kind of spooked here because what you said about the baskets was the thing that puzzled me most- I did the math right away, and I said to myself, this can’t be right because I know that from what my daughter said that 14$ would not go that far, and why wouldn’t CNN tell us how to help these families, or at least buy the baskets? Yesterday, I searched for CA ‘s email through CNN website, and sent a message asking just that. Of course the answer is’we read them all, but we don’t answer anybody.
Jina, I’ll buy a basket through you, in a trice. But a local group here in Woodstock, VT called Change the World Kids (they have a few websites) is already selling dung paintings from a village outside of Kigali to raise money for a soccer stadium in Rwanda, and Paul Farmer, I think. They just started this effort last fall and have already raised an impressive amount. But I would rather have a basket.
By the by, child number 2, presently in Sydney Australia, is reading your blog now too, and enjoys it very much.
jina,
consider a basket sold.
i’m moving back to utah by mid june, will you email me on how you want to do this?
i have a paypal account… that would let me pay you without giving your details out.
macy’s… please.
and, to forgive.
i’m not sure i’m that decent…no, i know i’m not.