Showing off in the countryside

At this time of year, Jacaranda’s tablecloths are regularly washed and ironed and African animals counted into crates for visits to visit marquees, marketplaces, courtyards and historic country mansions. At the end of each day, some go back in the box while others travel to their new homes.

Ingestre Hall, Staffordshire: probably our most glamorous venue of the year

Meeting our customers is always great fun and we now have ‘regulars’ who come and say hello, while they take a look at the new stock selected on our Easter trip to Zimbabwe. At every show, we meet at least one person who has spent time living in Zimbabwe and enjoy a few memories of places (and sometimes people) we know there.

The big show of the season is my local one: hardly anybody seems to have heard of it, but thousands of people flock to South Shropshire on the first Thursday in August and it is HUGE !    

After carefully loading up the car and driving over to the showground the night before, we find the patch of grass marked ‘Jacaranda’, kick a few sheep droppings out of the way and put up our tables. Unloading the car in the rain with mud underfoot isn’t the best part of any event, but some cheerful young stewards step in with offers of help and it’s all done and dusted in no time. The next morning starts bright and sunny and there’s already a buzz in the air, when we pull up at 7.30am. There’s just time for a cup of tea and a quick hello to neighbouring stallholders, then the first customers arrive and we’re busy!

There’s something for everyone at Burwarton: toddlers in pushchairs, farmers, pensioners, horsey folk, tourists and business people of all sorts. Whoever they might be, nobody’s in a hurry; they all seem to be relaxed and having a good time. As the day gets hotter and stickier, people wander past with ice creams or cool beers and we savour the occasional gentle breeze wafting into the tent.

So what do people buy at the show? Everything from an acre of pasture to a pound of fudge! It’s a day of business deals, indulgent treats and impulse buys, as well as an opportunity to do the sort of browsing many of us don’t often find time for. For us, Burwarton Show day coincided with the opening of our online shop http://www.zimport.co.uk/jacaranda/ and provided a rare opportunity for people to touch and handle a selection of our hand-made ceramics.

'Red Henna' platter by Burnt Earth Designs

 But, do people really want to lug bowls and platters round with them on a day out? Apparently (and luckily for us) there are quite a few who do. Others opted to take one of our ‘free delivery’ vouchers and choose from a larger selection online. Our other big seller of the day was hand-beaded wire animals, made for Jacaranda by Jonathan Domingo. For some reason, everyone wanted to buy ladybirds and we almost sold out. Back in Zimbabwe, Jonathan is now frantically making more, so that they can fly in (sorry!) before the English summer finally comes to an end.

So what in the world is 'gudza'?

From, Chilo, the lowest point in Zimbabwe, we climb almost 2000 meters on our drive to Chimanimani in the Eastern Highlands

On the side of the mountain sits the hamlet of Biriwiri, where we have arranged to stop and see a group of women make something from (almost) nothing. We are given an enthusiastic and traditional welcome, with singing, dancing and much laughter, before being ushered inside out of the hot sun.

 

As our eyes adjust to the light, we see we’re in a small ‘general store’ selling children's clothes, laundry soap and other basic essentials, but much of the space is given over to hats, bags, dolls, doormats and countless other items made from ‘gudza’. To make it, Muunze (Mountain Acacia) trees are stripped of their bark, which is then boiled in water until soft. After a thorough pounding using a giant pestle and mortar, the resulting fibre is rolled by hand into lengths of yarn. Weaving is done by hand, with no loom, pattern or implement other than the woman’s fingers and an idea in her head of what she’d like the finished product to be. All dyes are from locally grown plants and buttons hand cut from small pieces of wood. Oh and we are told the bark replenishes within a short time, so the process is entirely sustainable.

 

 

We choose a selection of bags and tablemats to bring back and will be interested to see how our customers feel about products made from this very unusual material.

Hippos in the pan

To get to the lake, we must first be poled across the Save river in a small boat and climb aboard a jeep. Thomas, our guide and driver, is carrying a heavy pickaxe, which he stows in the back before taking us on a bit of a thrill ride through low bush. At one point, a  huge and grumpy-looking bull elephant blocks our path and there is a bit of a standoff: as he starts charging towards us, we are suddenly reversing along the track at high speed. Having shown us who’s boss, he slopes off and we are able to continue, dropping steeply down onto wet sand and then full steam ahead through water to the other side of the Runde river. 

There seems to be no way up from the riverbed, but out  jumps our guide with  pick in hand and starts fashioning a ramp. A few minutes later, we roar up into a grassy, open area, where we see herds of impala, elephant, zebra, buffalo and many more wild creatures. At one stage we seem to have constant animal activity on all sides and it’s like being at an Imax movie.  A few more dips and climbs later, the stunningly beautiful Machanu ‘pan’ (as waterholes are known here) stretches out in front of us. Partly covered in waterlilies, the whole area is alive with birds and the heads of countless hippopotami pop up through the vegetation.

Easter with the elephants

The Easter weekend is a big holiday here and most people try to leave the city to visit family in the rural areas or relax in one of the country’s National Parks. This is a perfect excuse to stop ‘work’ for a few days, so we drive down to Gonarezhou to stay at the new and fabulous Chilo Gorge Lodge. It’s a long drive on a terrible road and we arrive at 4pm feeling hot, dusty and maybe just a little bit stressed.

After Nadine’s welcome and the delicious lunch she has kept for us, we do a quick change and join the 3km walk to the Chivirira waterfall. Nadine’s husband John is our guide and the rifle he carries is a reminder that this is one of the remotest and wildest places in Southern Africa.Locals believe that dhows used to tie up near here to offload their cargo,after navigating the Save river through Mozambique. Sipping our‘sundowners’ at the falls after a stiff climb to the top, it doesn't seem too implausible.

Next day, the sound of hippos grunting just below our room wakes me up, just as the sun is rising. There’s a lot of diving and resurfacing so, every time we try a headcount, there seems to be one more. Eventually they settle down and seven of them spend most of the day basking in the sun. During breakfast, a small herd of elephants crosses the river a short distance from the lodge. A couple of hours later, we see the fences they have trampled to get into a maize field and steal the crop that should have fed a village family for a year.  If they keep coming back, one of them will suffer the death penalty for their greed. The community here respect the environment and actively support wildlife conservation, but people have to survive here too.

Thank you, goats!

Bulawayo is Zimbabwe’s second City and feels a bit like the place that time forgot – though in a good way. Early mornings can be cool and breezy but, by about 10am, the heat from the sun and the general bustle are reminders that we are in the heart of Africa. Colonial architecture is well-preserved here as, happily, few people have seen the need to modernise. So Barclays Bank has a tin roof, albeit with satellite dish, and the National Gallery with its shady verandas is an absolute treat.

The gallery shop has a good range of local arts and crafts, but we only buy direct from producers so, after lunch we get in the car and head out of town to a so-called “high-density” suburb. Judith Ncube is manager of Bulawayo Home Industries and a popular Jacaranda line last winter was the mohair hats and scarves, made here under the supervision of Sipatisiwe.  Their goats are shorn 2-3 times a year, depending on how good the grazing has been and the fibre is then dyed and either spun or twisted, before being knitted or woven into beautiful items for sale.

We talked about creating a range of throws and cushions for the UK market and will be working on this together over the next few weeks. Nothing happens quickly here, but I find good things are usually worth waiting for…..