Christmas is the season for the preposterous.

A king born in a manger.

And so I believe it to be SHONA’s season as well.

SHONA started as a preposterous project.

I don’t know why I thought it would work.

Who starts in internet-based business in Eastern Congo, on an internet connection that makes dial-up look fast?

Recently I visited a bookstore and looked at the business section, where I found all of these guides for starting small businesses and organizations. They contained chapter after chapter of carefully organized plans, to be created BEFORE starting the business.

hmm…

In fact we are in the business of the preposterous in almost every way. SHONA started by making small cloth bags. I assure you that the idea of shipping small, handcrafted cloth bags out of Eastern Congo, does not strike the average Congolese person as clever. Congo exports gold and coltan, and other precious minerials. Things that are worth their weight in gold, literally. Cloth bags? Not so much. In fact I have hardly ever seen a Congolese person even using a cloth bag. Almost all of the bags used in Goma are plastic bags from China or Western hand-me-down bags.

And so we embarked upon a rather risky venture. And we embarked with some of the most “unqualified” people in the world. I knew nothing about starting a business, and nothing about sewing. And our craftswomen, while immensely talented and determined, are handicapped young women who had never been to school and were easily taken advantage of in other groups. That’s it. That is all we started with. There was no funding, no studies, no managers and directors. Just us.

And here is the kicker. Almost three years later. We are still going in precisely that fashion. We still have no outside funding (except a few gifts from friends) and no managers. Each item you see is truly the work of our hands.

Four months ago I returned to the US, with the plan that my husband and I will be based out of New York for the next couple of years. We loved Congo, but we need to be closer to family for a while. And in many ways, in order to continue with SHONA I need to be on this side for a while.

But it was a risk. I left the craftspeople in Congo to stand on their own. The test of a project, is not what happens when the “founder” is hovering over it, but what happens when she is not. Many, many people advised me that I needed to leave a manager or director, a boss of some sort, but I wanted to see each craftsperson operating as her own small business. I think that is the best way to empower the craftspeople and the best way to avoid many of the issues of corruption and mismanagement that doom many groups in Congo.

And the craftspeople have exceeded all expectations in terms of taking ownership for their work. I speak on the phone with them often, but almost all of the details of our work are done through text messaging, believe it or not. The craftspeople are far from computer literate (although this is a goal for the future) but they are well versed in text messaging. So I text message an order to each craftsperson each month. She goes to the market, buys the cloth, works for weeks to sew the order, calculates her earnings for the order in a simple accounting book, and submits that total plus the shipping cost to me via text message. And so it goes. Preposterous, except that it works. Really well.

Of course there were years put into making it work. My relationships with the craftspeople were built over years of living next-door to them and working with them daily, not through text messaging. Without the courses I taught them in math and writing, and without the skills they taught me in sewing and Swahili, this would not have been possible.

But my move back to the US was a risk for another reason as well. I need to work. I have spent the last three years of my life working on SHONA full-time for free. I was able to do that because my husband had a job in Congo and we didn’t need much to live on. But life in the US is a tad bit more expensive, and I knew that I would need to find a job, at least a part-time one.

And for that I am sheerly amazed as well. I have just taken a position teaching ESL to women in cooperatives (they have a nanny cooperative and a house-cleaning cooperative). The goal of this organization, as you might imagine, is to empower these women through employment and education. Sound familiar? In many ways SHONA has been a wild divergence from my expected career path, and yet it comes together in surprising ways. This job is a combination of my teaching experience and my experience working with SHONA. In fact my experience with SHONa is probably why I got the job.

And it is a 25 hr. a week job, leaving me time to continue working on SHONA. This is precisely what I needed, but hadn’t really imagined that I would find.

Don’t get me wrong, a lot of blood sweat and tears go into SHONA. Things don’t always line up right the first time around. But I have to say this: I am amazed at how much is possible, in ways that I never would have dreamed. I am, indeed, thankful for this season of the preposterous

Of course, there are also those half-empty kinds of days,when the fact that I am always learning, seems to directly point to the conclusion that I must know very little about what I am doing.   And it is true.   I am neither a sewing expert nor a technology expert, yet somehow I have found myself designing clothing and designing websites.

Fortunately I have also learned that the squeaky wheel gets the greese.  SHONA is growing quickly and a while ago I wrote a blog entry about how swamped I was, trying to figure out blogging, and tweeting, and SEO and a thousand other acronyms that seem to inhabit the online world.  I was frustrated with the homemade look of our website, and felt like there was just so far to go and I might never get there.

After all, I live in Congo, where the electricity works occsionally and the internet works occassionally and if I am really lucky I might get an hour or two where both are working at the same time.

So it is a bit hard to be on the cutting edge of technology, even if I did know what I was doing. Which I don’t.

But what never ceases to amaze me is how generous you all are.  I wrote that blog entry, and was immediately swamped with offers to help.  For free.

And so we find ourselves here, with a brand new website,  and even a brand new SHONA blog.  (Don’t worry I will still keep up with my personal blog, so read them both!)  Our new website and blog was created by NTglobal who offer a range of business services as well as all kinds of technology solutions. They have been incredibly generous, great to work with, and have done a fabulous job, as you can see.

And see our great new logo?  That is the work of Rena at Ali Pro Services. She has an amazing eye for design, whether it is for a logo, a brochure or a website.   For us she has created not just a logo but incredible new brochures and labels, that you will see just as soon as you buy something! She is a great advisor and designer and also knows a heck of a lot about Congo.

And check out our facebook page. That is the work of one of our customers, Lynn.  She found us on ebay, bought a dress, and has been a friend ever since.  She noticed we didn’t have a facebook page and set one up.

Let me make this clear.  These are people that I have never met.  In fact I may never meet them face to face.  Yet each of them have inexplicably gone out of their way to help us. (So please help us thank them. Visit them first if you are looking for help with website design, business solutions, or graphic design. I would recommend both of these companies to anyone and particuarly to a small organization or business looking to grow. Visit www.ntglobal.org and www.aliproservices.com.

The craftspeople I work with are talented at sewing and at so many other things.  Watch these seriously disabled women hop on a motorcycle taxi or climb a flight of stairs, and you will find yourself doubting all the limitations that you think exist in this world.

But the SHONA women  are amazed by all of you as well.  They see their faces, their words, and ultimately the work of their hands somehow, miraculously carried to the other side of the world and they wonder who has carried them there.

You have to really understand the lives they have lived.  They grew up in small villages in Congo.  They never went to school, and barely left the house, because of their handicaps.  They speak no international languages and never imagined having friends so far away.  But somehow, they have arrived in your computers and in your lives.

It is through the work of supporters like NT Global and Ali Pro Service, our dear friend Lynn and many others, that they can share their world and their work with you.

Today is a celebration.  This thing started so small.  Look at all the projects that start with so much more.  Yet we have made it so far.  Thank you to each of you who have helped us on this journey.  We still have a long way to go, but we are so happy to know that you are here with us along the way.