If you read this blog you are familiar with my stories of the challenges involved in doing business in a foreign culture, especially in a developing country. Communication with the indigenous artisans we work with is often fraught with misunderstandings and assumptions about time, quality standards, commitment, and trust. The results are often comical, and in the end, we almost always compromise and move on with faith that we are all learning.
Catalina delivering blouses from her village.
However, there’s another ongoing, rather curious challenge: our quest for new information and people’s willingness to share it.
Question: “Have you seen this blouse before?”
Answer: “I couldn’t say.”
Question: “We were told Rosita Ortiz made it. Do you know her?”
Answer: “Ah, I don’t know.”
Question: Do you know anyone who could help us find her?”
Answer: “No”
Or: “Have you seen this fabric before?”
Answer: “Maybe.”
Question: “Do you know where we can buy this fabric?”
Answer: “No idea.”
And so it goes.
In general, the artisans we work with in Oaxaca and Chiapas communicate well with us in all matters concerning the work we do together except when it comes to sourcing materials or the maker of a new product we have discovered. Of course, this complicates our work immensely, as one cannot just pick up the yellow pages or Google the things we need in these rural areas. So we spend weeks tracking down the meager scraps of information we are provided, only to find, for example, that Rosita, the woman who made the blouse, is the sister-in-law of the person we originally asked, and the new fabric we are searching for is being sold only a block away behind an unmarked door.
I realized, eventually, that these roadblocks and detours are created in the interest of job security. They are driven by the understandable fear that comes from generations of poverty and the insecurity of not knowing what tomorrow may bring.
We have learned to respect this, and to expect the extra time it takes to earn the trust of the people whose skills we value highly. Working together, we can create more long-term opportunities for everyone.
Artist, traveler, and social entrepreneur, Adele Hammond divides her time between Hood River, Oregon and the home where her heart is, Oaxaca, Mexico. The raw texture and color of Mexico became a part of her life when a year abroad with her family in a small Zapotec pueblo outside the city of Oaxaca gradually evolved into an extraordinary five.
Adele blogs about the culture, the crafts, and the people of Oaxaca and Chiapas, Mexico as well as her experiences in working with indigenous artisans there. Her travels take her down the back roads and into the workshops and homes of these people, where their diverse, ancient traditions and crafts are still being practiced today.
Her business, Latin Threads Trading, showcases and brings to a world market the work of these talented artisans while encouraging enterprise and empowering individuals to flourish independently and through their communities.
