Basket weaving in Matondoni Village, Lamu

Sun, 11 Feb 2024 12:26:41 +0000

⁣Matondoni is a small village about 35mins (on speedboat) away from Lamu city.
Most of the product sold in lamu city and exported out of lamu city are woven by the women in this small village.

The process was way too intricate for me to grasp in minutes. Learning how to work with my hands has always been a skill I delighted in from childhood. Whether it was knitting matts for the family house or braiding hair to weaving fabric. Creating beauty with one's God given hands is a supernatural gift. It's like alchemy, the ability to transform something if no value and give life to it.

I tried to learn a thing or two from hadeeya but I gave up after watching closely and decided to do the weaving I was skilled at. 😂
The second part (intertwining already wove pieces) of weaving was a bit easier. For some people in Lamu these woven matts are the beds they sleep on. Most homes are decorated with intricately woven pieces by the women of Lamu. Many thanks to Hadeeya, Reziki, Reziki's mom, Abdul, Fatima and the beautiful children I met for sharing their time with me.