This beautiful handmade bowl is exported by Gone Rural, a company that empowers the women of Swaziland to use their traditional crafting techniques to generate sustainable incomes.

The Kingdom of Swaziland stands proudly between South Africa and Mozambique. Smaller than Massachusetts, Swaziland’s population of one million is comprised mainly of Swazi people, with small populations of Zulus and white Africans interspersed.

About the pottery…
Near Swaziland’s administrative capital city of Mbabane, a group of 20 master potters create the traditional pottery of Swaziland—traditionally used to store beer and grain—for tourist and export markets. Crafting each piece by hand with no wheel, one woman can produce 160 ceramic pots in a month, earning through piecework three times the government’s recommended wage for employed handcrafters.

The potters coil long ropes of prepared clay to form each vase, and after smoothing and drying, rub the nearly-dry surface with a river stone to burnish the exterior. Dried vases are then fired in an open fire for two to three hours to attain the proper hardness and characteristic polished black coat.

About the weaving…
The kingdom of Swaziland is also home to some of the oldest granite mountains in the world. A wiry sedge grass grows in the cracks of granite and is harvested by local Swazi women, who call the hardy grass Lutindzi. Too wiry and inaccessible to be foraged by cattle, Lutindzi has been, for centuries, plaited into rope for tying down roof thatching. Swazi girls grow up learning the proper plaiting technique at their mothers’ sides, and as they mature, learn to stitch the plaits together to create exquisite floor mats and tableware.

Gone Rural
Gone Rural, a company dedicated to the creation of a grass weaving and plaiting industry in Swaziland, lies nestled in the picturesque Malkerns Valley. The company provides an invaluable craft export infrastructure that allows hundreds of rural Swazi weavers and potters to earn a good living from their craftwork. By empowering Swazi women to generate income from readily-available, sustainable natural materials, Gone Rural helps fuel Swaziland’s fight against poverty and HIV/AIDS through a sensible, grassroots approach.