From Sandstorms to Soapstone

After a night of less than fitful sleep, our first meeting of the day was with Jim from Smorlat who kindly drove to us first so that we could follow him to their location. I say kindly, because the road was quite unbelievably worse than the day before, with barely any suspension left on the car.

Passing through a market in the main town of Kisii, we noticed it was bigger, noisier and more vibrant than anything we had witnessed before. Literally thousands of people set up their various stalls by the side of – or in many instances actually on – the road, selling everything from clothes, to cooking pots and animals. Although difficult to manoeuvre without driving over the merchandise or the stallholders themselves, we somehow made it through and on to our first stop of the day.

We were given a lovely welcome at Smorlat and shown around their premises that house the varied steps of the soapstone business. There was an outdoor workshop where one man sat amongst the rubble of soapstone and carved the first crude outline of a hippo before finishing it off into a much rounder, smoother shape.

After this, the items are passed to the sanding department, who wash and rub them with sandpaper, to create that incredibly smooth texture. They are then placed in the sun to dry out for the next stage of colouring, which is done with a variety of stains depending on the requirements of the buyer.

At this stage, final embellishments are also added, giving a very detailed finish. Excess wax is removed and then the items are polished once more to really ‘finish’ them. The final part is to take them to the packing department, where there was an assembly line in place with a very efficient output.

As soon as the items are packed, they are labelled and then put into one end of the showroom, ready for delivery. From its humble exterior, you would never imagine the amount of activity going on inside, but Smorlat operates in a very professional way, and perhaps the high demand for their products is testament to this.

However, we did discover that some manufacturing happens away from the premises, in the homes of individual producers. Smorlat has 200 producers, many of whom have up to five people working for them, so there are around 1000 individuals crafting these beautiful ornaments. Amazingly, once the individual producer understands the requirements of their order and submits one piece to check standards, they have the green light to commence work. Each final piece is checked by one quality control manager, clearly a very busy individual!

We discussed the relationship between our two organisations and in particular, their expansion plans and where Shared Interest may be able to help. Smorlat is already a strong business, but with Kenyan banks being their only alternative option for finance and regularly charging around 23-28% interest, it quickly becomes apparent that we provide a real lifeline not only to this business, but to the 1000 producers and their families who rely on the work.

After this visit, we moved on to visit Nyabigena, another soapstone business (understandable as soapstone is mined locally) further up within the Kisii region. Although they have travelled to Nairobi to visit our office there, this was the first time that anyone from Shared Interest had visited them, so they were thrilled that we had made the journey.

This was more about understanding their business and explaining the services that Shared Interest can offer, such as accessing a higher percentage of credit up front when receiving orders from buyers with whom we have an agreement.

One of the main reasons that Nyabigena was established was to be able to provide education for the workers’ children. As a result of their efforts, they have now been able to build a school as part of their offices and showroom.

Once the children got wind that there were some strangers on the premises, their curiosity got the better of them and work basically came to a halt whilst pair after pair of eyes appeared around corners accompanied by shouts of “How are you?” followed by peals of laughter when we smiled and responded: “Fine thank you – how are you?!”

The dining facilities consisted of a metal hut where one man had prepared rice and beans for all of the children and was happily doing the dishes whilst his charges sat politely on a long wooden bench eating their lunch and giggling at their visitors.

After paying the obligatory visit to the showroom to buy a few pieces to remind us of our trip, we said our goodbyes and began making our way down another ‘road’ with everything rattling and were met with cries of ‘Muzungu Muzungu’, which means ‘White Man’ from the many children that we passed, some of whom took to run after our car, waving frantically so that we would acknowledge them.

Our hosts for the day had instructed us that there was a better and shorter road for us to take for our return journey. It was marginally better and slightly shorter (only seven hours to return as opposed to 10) although nonetheless was still peppered with storms, crazy Matatu drivers (small minibuses that take locals as passengers for a flat fee) that had little or no regard for fellow road users (choosing to overtake on bends with no visibility and just pull in front of you, expecting you to clear a space for them), ‘sandstorms’ on the stretches with roadworks and diversions, several police checkpoints and frequent cries of “Where’s the road gone?”

We made only one short stop to stretch our legs and have a cold drink. After a light lunch and still having a few hours’ drive ahead of us, we enquired about snacks. Once again, the options were sausages or samosas, which caused a fair amount of amusement, but still no takers.

Arriving back at the oasis of calm which was our Nairobi hotel, we reflected on two adventure-filled days, which although stressful at the time, we would not change for the world.

As a result of our road trip we have not only met our producers in their own space and extended more than finance to them, but we have seen more of the beauty and craziness that Kenya has to offer.