Baskets

 

Selection of basket for sale

Basket Photo Gallery

Botswana Baskets

Basket Weaver - Thitanya Kushonya is arguably the premier basket weaver in Botswana. Thitanya (better known as Kushonya) consistently wins the Botswana National Museum Basketry awards, so much so, that in 2004, she was asked by the museum not to compete.

Kushonya opened her shop in 2001 using the money she received as severance pay from Conservation International. The tiny reed hut she put up at the side of the road served as her workshop, as well as her retail shop after she quickly realized that she needed more weavers in order to stock more products.

Kushonya began recruiting young women from remote regions to be trained in basket weaving. She showed the young women the traditional weaves in the hopes that they would make baskets for Kushonya to buy. Unfortunately, just as in any art form, the skill and talent was slow to foster and Kushonya found she needed to make most of the baskets to keep her stock filled and her quality high.

Kushonya's baskets are made with fronds from palm trees found along the Okavango area. As a fromer Conservation International trainer, Kushonya practices conservation. Behind her shop in Maun, she has a nursery of palm trees that she cultivates and then re-plants in the areas she harvests the palm fronds from.

The harvesting of these fronds are quite dangerous since encountering poisonous snakes is the norm, not the exception. The fronds are soaked in a barrel with other plant matter to achieve the rich colors--no artificial dyes are used in the process.

When the round jugs are filled with water and left to soak overnight, the fronds expand and the container can now be used as it was intended, to hold liquid, which for the Hambukushu would be to hold their traditional beer.

One day in 2005, executives from Epcot Center stumbled upon Kushonya's shop. Impressed by her manner, enthusiasm and of course her baskets, they invited her to Epcot for their International Food and Wine celebration where she brought baskets for sale and demonstrated her techniques.

I first met Kushonya in March, 2004. We were leaving a lion research camp and since it was off season for Botswana travel, there were few places open in the tiny town of Maun.

We stopped at the shack with a faded hand-painted sign out front which read "Botswana Quality Baskets". I was pleasantly surprised by the abundance and beauty of the baskets. Peter and I entered the shop with no one insight. Shortly after entering, a woman, obviously pregnant waddled up to us. She had a beaming smile and while she looked as if we had disturbed her and her young son from their afternoon nap, she was pleased to see us. It did not take long for us to be able to effectively communicate. Kushonya's English was good and we seemed to understand one another even without words. I bought a modest amount--spending the equivalent of $80 US and was quite pleased with my purchase. I did not know when I would get back to Maun--if I would get back to Maun--and so in my mind I was collecting souvenirs of our travels around Botswana. Little did I know that my newly found acquaintance would become a good and trusted friend.

Peter carried the baskets to the car and as I turned to thank Mma Kushonya once again, she hugged me, as much as a women in her eighth month can hug you. She threw her arms around me and cried. "Thank you, thank you. I have not seen a tourist in months and I did not know how I would feed my family this week."

We exchanged cell phone numbers and she called me the following month to tell me she had given birth to her second son. As is with people in Botswana, but I suspect all over Africa, she was frank. "I do not have anyone to carry on my craft." She explained after she told me the news of her son's arrival. "I did not get a daughter and now I am too old to have more children."

I don't know about that...but I do know that she is a strong and caring matriarch with a pool of young women all up and down the Okavango Delta who are learning the fine art of basket weaving and will carry on her craft, if not her great skill, for generations to come.

 

 

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