Life in Nappi, a Macushi village located some 25 miles from Lethem, is simple. Farming, hunting and fishing are the main economic activities there but over the last decade six villagers have been making various hand crafted items, some of which are on display at GuyExpo this year.
Ruefina Da Silva is one of the Nappi residents involved in the craft industry. She has been making mainly balata ornaments since the early 1990s. Detailed models of armadillos, scenes from Amerindian villages and nativity sets have been on display at GuyExpo since last Thursday.
Ruefina Da Silva, a resident of Nappi, Region Nine displaying her balata ornaments at GuyExpo yesterday. (See story on page 10) (Gaulbert Sutherland photo)
At the tenth Caribbean Festival of Arts (Carifesta X), Da Silva reported, her ornaments were sold out but at GuyExpo this year sales are slow forcing her to slash her prices by as much as 50 percent in some cases. With GuyExpo scheduled to close tonight, Da Silva had little hope that she would sell much of her pieces before travelling back to her village. However, despite this the woman said that she will be present at the next GuyExpo with a wider range of ornaments.
“During Carifesta,” Da Silva pointed out, “there were many foreigners in the country and they came to the exhibition we had here last year and bought my stuff. This year I am seeing mostly fellow Guyanese people and they are hardly buying anything so I am dropping my prices.”
The nativity sets which take almost two days to make were originally priced at $5,000 but were reduced to $4,000. The prices of other smaller balata pieces were reduced by half. Da Silva explained that the ornaments take a very long time to make and at the price she is selling them she will not be compensated for her labour.
Over the years, according to Da Silva, demand for the crafts has declined and she had not been getting orders. When she returns to Nappi, she said, she will have to take up farming or start making other products of cassava to make a living. One of GuyExpo’s objectives is to provide small-scale businesses with an opportunity to display their progress and solicit possible buyers. However, Da Silva said, she is yet to see one buyer, local or foreign, who is willing to buy her products in quantities.
“When I go back I will have to find something else to do… this is my main source of income,” she said.
Da Silva said she and other residents from villages in the Region Nine learnt of GuyExpo through the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs. The Region Nine Chairman, she explained, sent a representative to inform villagers of the event and compose a list of those interested in participating.
“We travelled to Georgetown free of cost,” Da Silva said, “and we’re staying right in this compound [National Exhibition Centre, Sophia]. The only thing we had to provide for ourselves is food.”
Laughing, Da Silva recalled that when the group first arrived in Georgetown they didn’t have much money to buy food until they sold some of their products. With sales almost non-existent and home so far away Da Silva is ready to return to her village.
The same village council governs Nappi, its northern neighbour Parisha and its western neighbour Haiawa both of which are located within three miles. The villages are small, the layout simple and the houses small made from natural materials, Da Silva explained.
Nappi is located in beautiful savannah area she said; it is a short distance away from the Kanuku Mountains and there is no market there for balata ornaments, Da Silva said. GuyExpo, she had hoped, would provide an opportunity for her to find market for her products but it was not what she expected.
“…I mean Carifesta was better,” Da Silva said with a shrug.
For those of you overseas who don’t know what “flat” means well it means that “it nah ready yet”!!!!
This is because the organizers have sought to take food out of the poor people mouth by not having touts selling tickets to ease the stress of standing in the line for hours nor do they want the “poor people” to enter the premises to sell simple things like boiled corn, boiled Channa, cane juice and other cheap products that can quench the thirst of patrons.
Sand Hurst your argument is fallacious. Its is sad that this woman experienced poor sales but we should be mature enough to understand the economic plight of most Guyanese and their lack of interest in local craft/ornaments.
Just Say NO to GUYEXPO!!!!!!!
Like I said before, the local craft looks too local, it needs to be spiced up. Mrs. Da Silva is a very talented crafts person but not ready for the export market as yet.
She needs to make her items more like 3D relief pictures. Scenes of a branch with a Toucan or Bird of Paradise or an Iguana. Amerindian life in a village setting. Armadilloes foraging on the forest floor, an Amerindian hunter on a rock shooting fish with his arrows, against the back drop of a falls, miners panning or dredging for gold,etc
She needs to oil the master work then make a ballata or plaster master mold of it, so that she can quickly replicate more of her work.
She needs to put mirrors on both sides of her picture work or in the center or top and bottom etc. Battery operated clocks sell in the USA for about 5 bucks. She need to get together with another craft person to make her work as a clock piece. She need to create the Guyana coat of arms this way also.
Joe.
joe maybe you should assist mis dasilva with some money for her ornaments to reach international standards????
her craft will sell, why should she have it look like the American craft, Guyana is Guyana and people around the worls need to she what is made in Guyana, si pleaee shut up.
Joe,I man agree with yuh.
Turbo and Stone, send me youremail addresses and I will send you pictures of Guyana and Trinidad themed gold jewelry that I designed myself. No other jeweler in the Caribbean can replicate my designs.
All I did was take the same old wheel and painted it into a different color. Since all my designs are computer generated all I have to do is change the size to what ever a customer wants. I do not need a mold.
Joe.
Guy expo by and large is a total waste of time. How many foreign attendees are there for GuyExpo?
Did the Canadian govt fly in a contingent of potential investors?
American consular from New York bring any potential investment group?
Europe? bupkass?
Chalk this up as another PPP song and dance – Propaganda is what the PPP are masters at.
Cackaroo,if you continue at this rate you would get a seizure bhai.Take it easy bud…you have many many more yrs to whine about the PPP.
Samaooo,,,if you were silent on this one, i would have considered you having some sense remaining…but now–Nil…
Awwwwww soldier you hurt my feelings awwwwww now I feel so bad awwwwwww. NOT!
Men have landed on the moon, yet in this scientific age, Guyana is stuck in a donkey cart mentality. Mrs. Da Silva needs to take her craft up a few notches.
Poor and vulnerable members of the society, needs every legitimate opportunity to uplift themselves.
However, Guy Expo, ‘the big lime’ etc., are increasingly becoming ‘Bread and circus’ events of the political administration, without, substantially helping to upliftlift the society from poverty, ‘economic insecurity and fear’.
Guyanese, especially the poor, do not need ’staged’ distractions; they need education, skills training, land, loans and the necessary infrastructure to set up micro and medium businesses, particularly, agro business.
Guyanese, poor and landless., should be given priority before foreign investors to the fertile land of the country, particularly, in the interior areas, to help uplift the poor and vulnerable members of the society out of ‘economic insecurity and fear’, and to develop the country.