A moment with Abuja’s mat-weaving widows

At the moment, Huraira Idi’s greatest achievements are a landed property she recently acquired in Suleja and the fact that three of her children are in school receiving formal education that she never dreamt they would. She feels really blessed to have gone this far in her life. According to her, a few years ago, […]

At the moment, Huraira Idi’s greatest achievements are a landed property she recently acquired in Suleja and the fact that three of her children are in school receiving formal education that she never dreamt they would. She feels really blessed to have gone this far in her life. According to her, a few years ago, she barely had resources enough to dare to dream such dreams which seemed beyond her reach at the time in Saminaka, about three hours drive from Abuja in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

Every now and again she made just enough money from selling kosai (bean cake) and masa (rice pancake) to give her family an occasional treat of gala, kpekere (plantain chips), soft drinks or some new pieces of clothing she bought from the flea market.

Stacked up against her wall, on the front veranda of what now serves as her home, a rough uncemented building still very much under construction in the Asokoro District, are some of the works her past life has inspired and pushed her to create.  Compelling frames adorned with vibrant characters and brilliant colour  works which have drawn attraction to Huraira and several women like her who have taken on the skill of making mats from left over pieces of fabrics.

Rendered in different textures from cotton, polyester, nylon, lace, taffeta to velvet are hand woven mats in different sizes with colours well balanced that   create a perfect hue: a reflection of the happiness and optimistic expectations of the women for better years to come.

These mats are what full time housewives and mothers, Huraira, Hadiza Umar, Hadiza Usman, Fatima and Mama Aminu have come to see as their major preoccupation and source of daily bread in the last one year.

Widowed with four children to take care of, on the invitation of her elder sister, Huraira Idi came to Abuja with no concrete plans as to what she would do to sustain her family.

“My first husband is late. When my sister brought me here I remarried, but later got divorced. Although my last three children were with my second husband, I don’t get any support from him towards their welfare. That was how I started cooking to sell.”

In her rummaging through the FCT, she ended up in Asokoro and became a neighbour to Ella Smit  a Dutch housewife who taught her the art of mat weaving using trashed fabrics.

All of us women in this compound make mats every day using pieces of materials we have found in dustbins which we later sort out and make into mats. This is what we do on a daily basis that puts food on our table, sends our children to school and takes care of our every needs, they said.

Mats weft and waft together which serve various purposes from being table mats, to floor mats, bed or chair covers and wall decorations have become the order of the day in this Asokoro uncompleted building.

A typical day the women explain sees them waking up at 5:00am to say prayers, cook and get down to business, weaving mats. They usually don’t go out except to the market and a few essential places and the need for this does not often arise.

This is where we eat and sleep during the day, they chorused amidst hearty laughter when asked if they never go out to socialise with other women in the neighbourhood. “We can’t treat it anyhow. It is where we sleep at night if we have large orders and have a deadline to meet.” With no electricity the women say they are dependent on torch and candle light at such times.

“Mosquitoes deal with us sometimes but we have endured their bites and buzzes. They are not so bad though because we use mosquito coils, kerosene and other insecticides. Since there are no doors or windows, we depend more on the kerosene and coils.”

Explaining how she came about the technique Smit said, “We use the same techniques with that of Egypt. I thought since in Nigeria we have all this leftovers from the tailors or basically just go to the garbage and look for them, let’s try to do something with the leftovers. So my sons and I made a very small frame and tried something just to see if that will be nice. When we were done, it actually came out nice. I decided to pass the craft on to my domestic staff and the women next door.

A major challenge which they now face is that tailors seem to be aware that the women come picking leftovers from their dustbins and don’t discard them anymore. “Initially, Fatima said, “we literarily just went into the garbage and got them out of the containers. Suddenly, there were no pieces left at all, which meant the tailors were collecting them and then they want to sell them.

“We used to collect pieces from the Arts and Crafts Centre near Sheraton or Wuse Market but the dustbins are all empty of them now. When we ask they tell us they don’t have any pieces left these days because of the rains which according to them wet the fabrics. But even those wet ones we don’t see to collect. I just returned from the market and for a bundle of taffeta pieces I was told to pay three thousand naira. We are dependent on madam who sends her driver to help us go and pick pieces but they are getting scarcer,” Hadiza Usman said. Despite this there are still some tailors who give them for free. Some even just keep the materials until the end of the week, and then on Friday my driver goes there to collect them, Smit added.

A very shy Mama Aminu explained that the size of the mat determines how long it takes to finish a piece. “For the big one you can finish it within three days, but if you are tired and need to rest you can finish it in one week.”

On her preference for fabric she said, “I prefer using cotton because it comes out finer than the silky material that may have some ropes hanging on the side. But now because of the limitation we have in sourcing for materials we use any type of material we get.”

In all of this each one is able to count their blessings. Huraira said, “I have been able to enroll my children in school, treat my sick father in the village and purchase land near Suleja.

“I am most happy at the number of women I have taught who are earning a living from it. In my house there are about ten of us who can do it. All my children also learnt it and my eldest daughter does it in Suleja and has people learning under her too.”

Usman said she cannot exactly say how much she makes a month, “but I make a tangible amount: enough to make substantial savings to meet my needs as well as future plans. This mat making is the best thing that has happened to me so far. I sell groundnuts on the side, but it’s not much compared to this which is the major source of income for me. I just worry and pray we won’t be kicked out of here before I have properly laid out my plans.”

With the money I make from this I have invested in another business of making chin-chin, Umar said. “It is in small quantity for now, but by the Grace of God I will grow and make it bigger. I am happy it gives me additional money to do other things without touching the main one.” She added that “It has been really profitable because I use the money I get from it to buy clothes for my children and myself. Also, I have been able to buy a mattress as well as assist my husband whenever he doesn’t have money.”

Smit looks forward to a big display of the mats at the upcoming Arts and Crafts Expo next week. “This hopefully is going to be really good exposure for them because at the moment our main clients are foreigners, and the international schools.”

The other women may not have bought their own parcels of land; they say that their diligence and dedication to their art will see them at that destination sooner than they had ever imagined they would.