The Independence Remembrance 5 day market

The Dept of Tourism had been letting Belekria know that a market was being planned for the annual Independance day celebration.  They had assured Belekria they had a place reserved and would be notified later about when it would start etc.

Sooo one fine morning a couple of days after the public holiday, Belekria received another ph. call to say that it was starting that day!  Oops better get organised then hey?

Unfortunately it just happened to be when Samuel was away for a few days, and me being too scared to drive in the big city of Dili, poor Emmy and Nona were pretty embarrassed by their market stall on a small plastic coffee table…. So much for “PRESENTATION!”

I finally asked John from MAF if he could take our dining table in his ute and drop it around for them, so that improved the appearance a bit.   I was tryng not to be involved but was glad to visit them on the last day, and buy a few local products (as well as a cute black bunny for Israel).

Sadly the market wasn’t well advertised (actually not sure if was advertised at all) so even though Emmy and Nona turned up each day around 9am and stayed till after 10pm they came out of the 5 day market with a total of $53 income and $32 spent in transport etc. hmmmm.  Oh well, you win some you lose some.

A New Library In Timor

A few weeks ago I was contacted by a friend of a friend, who was helping prepare for the official reopening of the Xanana’s reading room (Now Xanana's cultural centre and library)

At our first meeting Belekria was asked to sew some cushions for the children's area in the library.  They asked for a total of 24 cushions including 10 huge cushions at 1mx1m.  All with an applique animal on the top surface.  Most cushions produced here are single layer, but we sew/stuff a cushion and also sew a removable cushion cover to match.

Their second request was for me to organise a floor covering of some sort, which we decided would be better if was woven matting rather than a cloth/sewn rug.  We discussed some decorative options and have decided to use tais fabric to stitch an appliqued outline of East Timor across 3 large woven mats.

The third request was for a large crocodile puppet along the lines of a Chinese dragon, which children could hold up and move around. 

The fourth and final request was for me to re-stretch 2 small paintings which Xanana painted while he was in Prison.

WOW!

As you can imagine I’ve been quite busy myself as well as the sewing room being flat out stitching and stuffing cushions. J

The official opening was this past Sunday, and the cushions and crocodile were well loved. 

Unfortunately the woven mats were unable to be prepared in time, partly due to the impracticality of collecting and drying the required palm leaves during a rainy time, and partly as they are so huge themselves – 3 mats each 2.5 x 5.6m!  Hopefully they will be ready for Mid January when regular activities will be arranged at the Cultural Centre.

End of year figures

I love using excel.  Just thought id share that with you.  It does explain why i have a very detailed file with lots of separate pages of numbers and figures for all sorts of things related to bellekria.  Of course there is a costing page, which works out how much each item costs, and what profit you get for the suggested retail price.  Then there are pages to do with employee details including loans management, pay packet tools and prices of all materials.  Just to name a few
Anyway, of course the most important excel file is the monthly profit and loss.  Sinta keeps a daily paper record of all sales, and at the end of the month passes them onto me along with any receipts and a chart detailing what days each employee worked.  I enter all this data, and add in any extras including their pay.  I have just been using the same file since i opened the sewing room, and it has always been in the red by a few hundred (ok, 9 hundreds to be more accurate).  Anyway I thought I would try the novel idea of working out the profit/loss just from this current year.  I wanted to see how much the business had needed support each month to function.  So I entered the data in like this:
And then i averaged it out to see what the average monthly loss was –ok i admit it… I'm naturally pessimistic) and lo and behold I got a profit of around $3 each month!!  Wow!! So there you go.  It hasn't cost me anything – in terms of dollars and cents.
What a miracle – Thanks to God  and all the wonderful donations of materials which really help in a huge, HUGE way.
So aside from the numerical figures, together we have been able to give full time employment to 5 women (with feminine figures ha ha).  Three of whom have taken out home loans from us, making monthly repayments through their salary.
  Sinta, with her husband Apoli and two nieces are standing proudly outside of their newly finished home.






Ana also took out a home loan to assist in finishing her new home- pictured here with her husband, young son and lots of family to help celebrate moving in.
     

Novi has also taken out a home loan to help finish her house for  her husband and young daughter.





Amona (Nona) is very grateful to be employed.  Not only does it provide an income for her household, but it gives her a daily activity to help her cope with some difficult family issues.
 


Ange has been travelling from the other side of the city, and has been grateful for an income to assist with the costs of raising her 4 young children.

A windfall and some wild winds

Friday market day again!  The sewing room was buzzing in the morning as we all whipped up a few more balls and other new items to sell. (more on that later).  We were also excited that Samuel had driven off to the Rotary shipping container event!.  We were expecting a couple of  boxes from Northern NSW.  A combination of some items i had purchased earlier – lots of PUL and FOE elastic, as well as some sewing supplies collected by my parents, aunt, and friends.  Samuel had been gone a few hours and we were all heading out the door for a quick lunch before doing the big afternoon transporting/market scene.  But here comes the car!  How exciting!  The girls all say “Oh! there are lots of boxes!”   Sure enough  a total of 4 large boxes were emptied out of the car and shuffled into our cramped sewing room :)

Christmas!! Party! Presents! Open them lets have a look!
 


 We only had a short time, so we tore the tape away and had an amzing time seeing what what inside.  So much wonderful stuff!! laces, balls of wool, fabrics galore, books, sharp scissors, threads, threads and more threads!! And lots more!  What a blessing!
Thankyou so much to everyone who sent these things over.  The items are so valuable here, and the women know that this will help their sewing group to continue to move forward.  It is such an encouragement!!
God bless you abundantly!!

Friday is a long day, so this blog will be a long blog :)
So we dragged ourselves away from the boxes of goodies, and raced home for lunch.  Sweet Emmy had made lunch for us all which was wonderful as we had all been so busy.  After lunch we cleared the table, popped it on the roof of THE TRUCK! (Yes it is back in action – somewhat).
Then we drove around to the sewing room and loaded on a treadle machine, boxes and baskets of products  and chairs, etc etc
When we arrived at the market site there was a bit of a blustery wind stirring.  We started setting up the  table and chairs and clothing rack and putting our products on the table.  The first sign that things may get interesting was when our clothing rack fell over.  Hmm.  We tried putting heavy rocks on the base bu it fell again, so then we tied it to the metal frame.  However the canvas was flapping madly, and suddenly a metal bar from the centre of the top fell down and swung near our heads!  Aghhh!  Eeek!
We were getting a little disturbed.
Some market staff came and started wiring the metal frame at some places to make it a bit stronger.  However by this time we were all standing around the edge and slowly dashing in to get our gear away in case anything else should happen.  Our canvas roof was a particularly old damaged one, so the tears that had been taped up now started ripping with a frenzy.  So the market men came and took off the canvas, and we all agreed to move our bodies and our belongings to a safer location – a fixed timber shelter.  There we sat for around 2 hours.  Chatting, snacking, and ooohing and awing as the wind continued to blast the coast.  We finished off the hand sewing of the balls we had been making.
At one point a metal frame which had not yet had its canvas removed started swaying and then suddenly the legs were pulled out of the ground and the whole frame flew up and tumbled over!  There was a lot of screaming as you can imagine.  Thankfully no one was in the vicinity of the thrashing metal bars!  I tell you my heart was racing!
Other stalls were securing their belongings and settling down to wait out the wind.    We were all wondering if we should just reload the truck and head home, or just keep praying that the wind would stop.  By around 5:30 the gusts were getting less frequent and we decided to have another go at setting some our heavier products out, as a few customers were starting to arrive. 
We used lots of masking tape to hold coat hangers in place, and rocks to hold cloth books and cushions down. 
And you know what?  It was worth the hassle as we sold over $60 worth of products!!!!
YAY!!
Lots of balls sold, as well as 1 book, 3 school skirts,  and 2 dresses.
Sinta, Anna, Novi and Nona were so happy.

And as the sun set over the ocean, the full moon was rising behind us over the hill.
  
We just made it home before midnight, exhausted but happy… and that is the end of the story…..

A Sack of Clothes

So remember how Serenity and I were discussing the idea of getting a sack pf second hand clothing in our village?  And how the women in the sewing room got really excited about the idea?  Well Guess what???
We did it!
Samuel assisted in purchasing the sacks.  2 smaller sacks for $30 each, and 1 large sack of remnants for $160.  We got the bags back to the sewing room and opened up the clothing ones.  We counted 175 items.  Which if we could sell half them at $1 each we would make a decent profit.  Anyway, Sinta offered to sell them on her verandah.  So Sat morning we grabbed a cart and loaded it up and walked around to her place.  I got to help her unload the stuff and organise it in piles.  (Of course i took the opportunity to pick up an item of clothing for each of us :) 
  


The good news is, that even without any advertising, lots of people immediately started gathering around and rifling through it.  So Samuel and I snuck away (to be less of a distraction) and in the evening Sinta delivered $30 to me.  The following evening she delivered another $30!  And she had recorded about $70 owed by various people.  What a profit margin!  To top it off there is still a decent sack full of clothes left.  We were stoked as you can imagine…..

Cute smocked dresses!

    
Sinta loves whipping up small experimental designs.  One afternoon i noticed one of our neighbours small girls wearing a sweet outfit made from leftover bag fabric.  I was very impressed.  I mentioned it to Sinta, and she shyly explained how she had used up some fabric remnants to make a dress as a gift for this little girl.  I encouraged her.  After sourcing this new batik fabric, i began to think – hmm 100% cotton fabric (which foreigners look for plus the fact that foreigners love to purchase locally made products,  well– lets make cute girls dresses!!  So they came up with a simple smocked top/dress with straps tied on the shoulders.  They use the leftover pieces from the bags.
I think they are very cute.  The girls bought 1 roll of elastic thread for 50c which they wind onto the bobbin.  They made 6 dresses with the 1 roll.  I was in the sewing room as they finished the first 2 and hung them on the wall.  Soon after a neighbour wandered in and eyed them off.  She returned later to purchase both of them less than 30mins after they were finished!  Talk about products walking off the shelf :)  I bought them a couple of bulk rolls of elastic yesterday and we may begin making more children's clothing.

Repurposing

That’s a modern word for chopping up some article of clothing and making it into something new.
When some of our visitors arrived they brought some treasures…. Among other lovely things, they brought over some bright colourful dresses a number of sizes bigger than the Timorese women.   Of course we immediately saw possibilities.
Sinta and Novi held one up to their chest and pulled a bit here and tugged a bit there and a cute little party dress began to take form.
A few hours later they had produced a young woman's party dress, as well as a child's version complete with bow!
Delightful.  They were quite cocky about the fact that the fabric was free, yet they could sell the dress for about $10.!!  That's a good profit margin hey?  A few women are already eyeing it off and it seems like it may sell soon.