I had always heard of the work of these women but had never visited them in person to ascertain whether the stories I have heard were valid or they were just made up so I decided to visit them.
To satisfy my curiosity, I called Mark who is currently a “middle man” for the women in the village I have come to describe as the “magical village of innovation” in my several posts on Facebook. Unlike my visit to Pikworo which was not planned, we had a plan for this visit.
Mark picked me from the office at twelve in the afternoon and we made our way from Bolgatanga to Bongo- Zokor where the magic happens through innovation and intuition. The distance from Bolgatanga to Bongo-Zokor is a 22km and 48 mins ride/drive.
The road from Bolgatanga to Bongo Zorkor is untarred and since we were using a motor, we were bathed with dust. Slowly and steadily we made our way to the “magical village of innovation”.
One thing that stands out here is the fact that upon entering the village, women are seen in groups weaving together and chatting the day away. There are several groups of women in several places in the village who weave different products and have differing designs dependent on the group they belong to.
I and Mark had decided to visit two groups before the day ends.
The first group we visited was dominated by old women but the technology used in weaving their products struck me. They weaved their products with plastic waste blended with straw especially with the huts so as to prevent it from absorbing heat.
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I called one of the women aside to ask questions about how they do what they do and who tutors them. Her name is Akolgo Atampugre and she happens to be the leader of the group.
“We weave our products with rubber we pick from the floor. We were not taught by anybody, we come here and the design comes off the head then we do it. We mostly do this full-time during the dry season but when the rain starts we do it on part-time basis so that we can work on our farms and you know, poverty also has contributed to our ingenuity because it causes us to think about more designs and other ideas we would not have thought of,” she said while I remembered the saying that “necessity is the mother of all inventions”.
After staying for a few minutes we set off to another group. We decided to dodge the dusty road and rather use a shortcut road to the next group we planned to visit. Like the Akan adage that says “Shortcuts are dangerous”, we got missing that we had to trace our way back to where we first went before moving back to the second group. Upon arriving at the place, the women were elated to see us although our visit was unannounced. They were equally weaving and their designs were out of the world. The difference between these women and the first group was their local technology for twisting the raw straw which was used as a complement to the plastic waste. We interacted and they exhibited their designs which I loved because truly, they were taking Ghanaian culture to a different level although they have no education.
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Their vision as weavers is to get people to appreciate their art and work at projecting Ghana through their hats, ropes, baskets, fans which are all produced from plastic waste. The women do not see the use of plastic waste for their work as a job but rather their contribution to the fight against plastic waste which the country has to deal with on a daily basis.
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Although an innovative move by the women, they produce in smaller quantities and do not have a ready market for their products. The women of Bongo-Zokor wish to produce in bulk not only to make some income but also to work to complement government’s effort at fighting plastic waste in the country and also sell Ghanaian culture through their innovative designs.
By: www.tourafriq.com/Ghana
