Valerie, Eric, Fahad and I are preparing to give a geography/evolution lesson to our
Art of Conservation students. We won’t be teaching from a text book, however. We will teach in a more creative way using a special prop, one that looks like Planet Earth. But who can make this for us in Rwanda? Alphonsine, of course! Alphonsine lives in Kinigi, near Parc National des Volcans where she works out of her home, making all kinds of things from dried banana leaves. I doubt any one has ever asked her to create a big round ball. Eric used an inflated plastic tennis ball to show Alphonsine an example of what we want, explaining that we’d like her to make something similar but of dried banana leaves and BIG, but not too big that it can’t fit into the back of my truck.

Eric shows Alphonsine an inflated plastic tennis ball, a model of the future Planet Earth to be made of dried banana leaves.

Alphonsine made over 200 frames for our latest art exhibitions held in December 2007.

An artist is standing in front of the art which is displayed using frames made by Alphonsine.

And here is Samantha standing in front of some art a few months ago!

A close-up view of the labor-intensive work.

I met Alphonsine over a year ago. Since then, I’ve hired her to make various things for me, all out of banana leaves of course. She makes mats and frames, boxes, and baskets. If I surprise her with a large order, she’ll often hirer other banana weavers to help her. I recently asked her to make me a set of mats to use to hang some of our artwork. When I explained that I needed ten 3.5 foot x 3.5 foot square panels - and soon - she responded as usual with smiles and laughs. At that point, Alphonsine grabbed my hand and led me to her workspace saying something in Kinyarwanda that I couldn’t understand. Valerie translated. Alphonsine was just letting me know that this type of work takes time. She also had to find especially long banana leaves for these mats. Who knows what she’ll need for the Earth.

Making the big square panels requires especially long and hard to find banana leaves.

Until next time,
Julie

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