Kiki is made from light-brown fabric and Lolais fabric is darker
For years my friend Neo Motshumi has dreamt of making and selling LolanKiki, a range of ethnic cloth dolls she designed.
Drawn from all nationalities in South Africa, the dolls are a snapshot of SA tribes, including Zulu, Xhosa, Batswana, Bapedi, Basotho, Ndebele, Venda and Shangaan.
As South Africa is a very diverse country, Neo also included dolls that represent our Chinese and Indian communities.
Neo and I have been friends since the early 90s, back when we both lived in Mahikeng. Last year we agreed that she should come from Durban to Phokeng for an extended visit with me.
She's a very creative individual and I needed her "out-of-the-box" thinking to spark my own creativity. In return, she needed my very practical nature to ground her as she creates and begins to market her range.
So I converted one of the rooms in my house into her studio. Her first visit was in
October and since then she has come and stayed depending on both our
whims. The result has been numerous dolls made and sold, with bulk orders to creches and individual orders both nationally and internationally. This is still the very beginning of her business, but finally she's seeing her dream through. I'm very proud of her.
About the dolls
There is a wide variety of outfits to choose from
Lola is made of dark brown fabric while Kiki is made from light brown fabric. Both dolls have a variety of outfits to choose from, inspired by all SA tribes. There is also Chinese Lola and Kiki, who are yellow/gold and wear kimono-type dresses and Indian Lola and Kiki, who wear a sari or kurti.
The dolls also wear a brooch, necklaces and bracelets made from beads and carry a handbag that their friend can use to store their clothes.
The brooches
The handbag, necklace and bracelet
The package comes in a recycled newspaper gift bag.
Currently, the full package is available for purchase directly from Neo for R350.00. You can email her at kikinlola@gmail.com to place your order. The dolls are also available on etsy (I've just activated a long-dormant account).
Additional clothes are also available to order for the dolls and can include shorts and tops. You
can also choose to buy a custom-made outfit for the child to match the
doll's clothes. In such instances, you will need to email Neo to discuss
your order. Of course large orders from specialty shops and children's clothing shops are very welcome. There are several women's sewing projects here in Phokeng, itching to get busy fulfilling orders!
Sample dress
Sample dress 2
As the resident storyteller, my job is to write stories about the adventures of Lola and Kiki and their friends. Medium-term, the stories will accompany Lola and Kiki doll packages and also be sold as stand-alone books.
When blogging as a way to procrastinate. I'm supposed to be getting ready to attend an extended family gathering happening this afternoon. Basically, the Senne-Pitsoe families, descendants from multiple great grandfathers Keledi and Ramodutwana, who we can track from waay way back, gather regularly so that we can get to know each other. I want to go because it's interesting to meet all these cousins of different ages and interests. Some of them live in the area. Others may have moved.
The challenge is that in modern times we grow up, marry, have kids, get involved with our nuclear lives and friends and careers and colleagues from work and hobbies, and pretty soon, the following generations have little contact with the greater family. And it's hard to muster interest in some strangers who have a long-diluted blood link with you.
We mean to fix that through the regular gatherings, encouraging young people to know of each other and where possible, use shared common interests to build a stronger bond. There are lots of us though and for me, attending can be a stressful thing. In real life, I'm not a very social creature and some days I just want to cocoon in my cave home. Close friends bandy the word "hermit" enough to be a bit disturbing, but they make an effort to visit regularly so that I actually look like I have a decent social life. Huh. Anyway, today is one of those days when I'd rather just hide work in my garden [people don't want to go there with me because I might want to make them dig some worm-infested soil].
One of the organisers said there will be some elders who will share with me folktales and forgotten legends from our area to feed my muse. Yes, I was aware it was encouragement-cum-bribe to draw me in. There are also two family poems that I've been meaning to get hold of and some members of the gathering have copies. So, yeah, I'll stop dragging my feet and go! There are lots of good reasons to go. I think.
About Roundafire, my new digital publisher
Source: Roundafire
But before I go, let me tell you about Roundafire, who are going to publish some of my children's stories (African language and English). They gave me a contract more than a year ago, we are in edits for some and illustrations in others, so it's pretty much a done deal.
Anyhoo, Roundafire is a digital company and they have developed a children's books appof the same name.
According to co-founder Kgosi Kgosi, their mission is to encourage a culture of reading among children and "further
afford every child within our diverse, multicultural and multilingual
society the opportunity to experience the joy of story and simply to
read relatable and relevant stories representative of their backgrounds."
He says the benefits of the app are that:
It serves as a platform for leisure reading for the young ones.
New stories will be uploaded regularly.
The library is a good mixture of educational material and storybooks.
Children can read across different genres all in one app.
Stories are relatable and relevant to children of our society. No Cinderella!
It will, in future, host stories in some of our local languages like: Zulu, Tswana, Afrikaans as a start. (This is where I'm coming in with my African language stories)
Stories are written and illustrated by South Africans so the economic value chain benefits locals and the arts
I think from a parent's perspective, the app makes bedtime reading easier. I still remember re-reading the same old story for Baby, wishing that I had access to more. As a writer, I could make up some on the fly, and later placed them online for anyone to use, but it was not a sustainable thing for me.For parents who may not even be able to make up a story on the fly, this app helps because it gives you access access to a library that is regularly updated and the price is more reasonable than buying individual books.
Also, too many times I've heard my African friends say, "I'd love to read my children stories in our language, but there aren't many of those books out there or I can't find them in a bookshop in my area or [Insert Another Reason here]. Roundafire enables that much-needed access. Being a tech fangirl myself, I also love this marriage of my two loves.
In case you're wondering if I'm biased towards them? Yes I am. Kgosi found me online and we started emailing back and forth over some other issue. Eventually he told me about his project, we met, I liked what I was hearing, he made me an offer, we couldn't reach terms and we left the door open for further collaboration. We continued to chat through the months (about other things) and then eventually, the stars aligned and so some of my stories will come out with his app.
So, I've seen Roundafire develop and grow for a while now. I fully
support Kgosi and what the company is doing. And nope, they don't pay me
to say that.LOL. We just a pretty straight-forward author-publisher
thing going. But I get excited when I see people do something
interesting that not only them but society as a whole.And I think the
more of us support this kind of initiative, the more there will be more
people innovating. So if you're a parent and you're looking for
children's stories for your bedtime reading, check them out. and if you like what you see, download the app.
Read Aloud Day Coming Up on 24 February 24
Neo and the Big Wide World
Finally, don't forget that February 24 is Read Aloud Day.
To celebrate this event,
National reading-for-enjoyment campaign Nal’ibali has teamed up with South African musician Yvonne Chaka Chaka who will be giving her own special reading of Neo and the Big Wide World in isiZulu to children at Orlando Stadium in Soweto.
I've been meaning to write this post for a while, but I had a hard time crystallizing what it is I wanted to say. Then several things happened at the beginning of this year:
A publisher I've been meaning to work with but couldn't reach agreeable terms asked me again to submit work. He especially wanted African language children's stories.
One of my regular clients, a corporate client I generally do multilingual work for, sent some translation work.
I received info for a freelance writing gig for a business writer that I wanted to jump at. I looked like an ideal candidate for it, until they mentioned that being multilingual (in languages I don't speak) is an advantage. Big bummer for me.
My friend Neo came to stay with me for a while. She's been doing that periodically since October last year. She's the granddaughter of the notable Setswana author D,P Moloto whose novels were prescribed throughout most of my schooling and who has had a huge impact on Setswana literature.
I also started seeing "multilingual" all over the Internet. Clearly, I was not the only person with "multilingual" on their mind.
Why I Also Write Fiction In Setswana
I belong to Batswana, one of the Black groups in South Africa, based mostly in the North West province. However, I write commercially in English because that is the language that allows me to have the greatest reach to an audience.
In case you're wondering how we relate to the people of Botswana, Batswana in the North West province of South Africa are family to the people of Botswana. British colonialists put a border in the middle of us, effectively separating a people and leaving my side in South Africa and the other Batswana in Botswana. But that is very ancient history. We are South Africans.
For years my Setswana writing was initially relegated to being creative self-expression and personal entertainment. Mma used to narrate for us interesting stories that I later found out, were not written down. My village in Phokeng also has a rich reservoir of legends, told casually to children when I was growing up, but not written down.
A number of local publishers do publish indigenous language works, including Setswana stories. For example, Maskew Miller Longman has for years hosted the MML Literature Awards and through this initiative, published some really good teen novels. "Give South African teenagers the gift of reading in their mother tongue," the publisher says.
The closing date for this year's entries is 30 April, so if you are an author of teen novels, you have time to polish your manuscript and submit it.
But somehow, the stars never aligned enough for me to publish Setswana language significantly with local publishers. I placed only a few stories and those were originally in English and were then translated to other languages.
So I wrote my stories for the children in my family and for future generations. The curating led to the birth of Storypot in January 2006 when I finally appreciated that computers do crash and I didn't want to lose my life's work to a virus originated in some basement somewhere across the world.
The Impact of Tech and the Internet on Publishing Indigenous Stories
Over the years, the use of Internet and social media has changed the Setswana reader's landscape. More people now have the opportunity to chat online to their "friends" about the stories and folktales of their childhood.
A lot of South African parents I've met online seem to feel as if their home languages and their stories are being lost. Among my own friends, there is a lot of rigorous debate on Facebook,
with people posting stories they remember or asking others to remind
them how the legend was concluded. They are super-motivated to read them for their own children. So something that I used to do for myself is gaining an audience. Maybe. I also think that tech is providing an accessible, cost-effective way for writers and publishers to publish these stories and meet the needs of this growing audience.
Kgosi Kgosi, co-founder of Roundafire and a new publisher for some of my children's stories, is one of the new breed of publishers who see the opportunity.
Here is an audio where Kgosi chats with Redi Tlhabi on 702 about storytelling, the need for writing and publishing these stories and about Roundafire http://goo.gl/QAbz8C. Tomorrow I'll do a quick intro on Roundafire, as I'm planning to publish some stories with them and hope to write some more stories for them (in English and Setswana). In case you're wondering, he is accepting submissions and very keen to see stories in the 9 African languages.
I don't know if tech and the Internet will provide a sustainable push to grow indigenous language readers and encourage publishers to bring out more books. My hope is that new publishers will emerge and do for our local languages what Lapa Publishers is already doing for Afrikaans.
11 Official Languages Means Potential For Corporate Work
Let me start out by stating that, just because you speak a language does not mean that you can translate that language to or from another language Chances are, you can speak it and write it very well. But are you a translator? Can you be a professional translator, with your word choices used by companies and institutions to inform, educate and make decisions that have financial impact?
With that caveat, being multi-lingual means that you are step ahead in being able to produce material in another language. With the right training, you could potentially add writing and translation to your tools of the trade.
I don't know what the job market is for people who are multilingual in other languages. But I've found that my having the fairly obscure Setswana (globally speaking) as part of my language pairs means that there is less competition for the work. National and multinational companies/organisations want to speak to South Africans in their mother tongue and someone has to write or translate that stuff. It can be steady work if you pursue it.
Finding the work is fairly easy. There are numerous global agencies where one can register to be considered for work when it is available. Like every other opportunity, some potential clients pay really badly. Others value their multilingual service providers and pay very well. So the usual cautionary applies. For me though, the good news is that the opportunities exist in the first place.
Share you views: do you agree with me that there is a market for indigenous language stories in South Africa ? Is being multilingual is an advantage? Or do you feel that a second language dilutes one's grasp of the primary language?[For further reading, see this article that says Being Bilingual Changes The Structure of Your Brain] Would you invest in polishing your secondary language(s) so that you can use them professionally too?
A book launch is a delicate thing. Once the book is ready, you book a venue, do a heavy load of marketing and promotion for the event, get some good reviews lined up, organise snacks and drinks and then you hope that people who are influential in the book world and some of the author's fans actually show up on the day.
And when the work is by a debut author, it's even harder to imagine that there will be crowds attending the event, especially when the publisher is a tiny independent and the author is not a well-known person to start with.
The weekend launch of my friend Tirelo Ole Makgeledisa's book, "Voices of Jesus and Ancestors" published through indie publisher Iphupho Publishing blasted through all that conventional wisdom.
The launch was held at Skoobs, Theatre of Books at Montecasino in Fourways, Johannesburg. That's right - that Montecasino where it's always dark and you can eat and drink and watch theatrical shows and gamble away all your money on slots and time just flies by unnoticed.They have a bookshop too. I didn't know that, until Ole's launch.
So how did she get the launch so right? Keep in mind that some of these things don't and won't work for everyone, or they are counter to how we do our own processes: 1. The invitation was enticing
It told you everything you needed to know to attend the event.
Notice the mention of how much the book costs. So you can buy the book while you're there :)
2. The venue was just right
Skoobs is lovely. And fits right in with that Montecasino vibe. The bookshop is fairly large, on two levels I think, with aisle after aisle packed with books.And Deborah (the owner I think) is very keen on locally published books, including self-published and books by indie publishers. They seemed to be very busy, so whatever mojo she's using must be working.
A warm welcome from Deborah
Ole's book launch also brought in a large crowd of family, friends, colleagues (current and former) and well-wishers. And they didn't just sit there, listening to the speeches (I was one of the speakers). The guests tweeted the event, took pictures with the author and posted them on their social media platforms, basically saying to their own friends, "don't you just wish you were here with us?"
The debut author signs autographs
This was a group that was inclined to celebrate and just needed an excuse, which is great when you're launching a product. The master of ceremonies also encouraged everyone to buy a copy of the book (pay for it downstairs) and then come up to the reserved area for Ole to autograph. It was fun. It was lighthearted. We celebrated Ole and her achievement. Most importantly,books were sold
3. The book touches a raw nerve in South African society
So a lot of people were inclined to attend the event because they wanted to be part of the conversation. In her book, Ole tells the story of how she grew up caught between African traditions and Christianity. She speaks about how she hears voices... and started having visions at the age of eight.
She kept that secret for many years, because she knows that in our society, when you hear voices you're either deemed crazy or possessed by evil spirits. Ignorant, too steeped in superstitions are also some of the labels.So traditional practice became a dirty little secret we all keep. We know people who do it. Some very "respectable" people even consult with them under the cover of darkness. Ole said she was done with being ashamed.
4. She built an audience for the book before she even wrote it
More than 80 people attended the event, I think
Ole started to publicly talk about the book long before she wrote it.Friends, family and colleagues heard so much about the story they wondered when she'd ever write the book.
"That book was long overdue!" Kgosi said. As I sat here writing this post, I tried to work a good descriptor for Kgosi. What is Kgosi's relationship with Ole and me and the other people who attended the event? I couldn't find an appropriate word. Yes he's a friend. The brother of a close friend. A mutual friend with so many people.
There was a lot of "oh, I didn't realise you two knew each other!" And that was the nature of things there.. so many people who are connected with Ole and with each other building a huge network.
This network was built over a lifetime through university and various jobs and social situations and relationships. Some of the people have a keen interest in books. Others were just interested in her book, or in this particular subject matter.
The people who attended the launch were just the tip of the iceberg. There were many more people who were interested in the book and event but couldn't make it.
5. Ole posted story snippets on Facebook, building a following
Once she started posting her story snippets online, more people joined her on Facebook page. "I suggested that she stop giving the story away and write the damn book," Itumeleng, another friend, said. [the French is his for emphasis, LOL]. 6. She gave updates on the publishing process
Her followers knew the book was coming and when she didn't mention it, someone would ask about it. So people knew to set aside time for the launch. It also helped to build up a lot of goodwill for the project.
7. She has the support of some key people
Of course there was a huge fallout from her social network over the fact that she was writing an autobiography. Her memories may not be complimentary afterall. She didn't name names.
Some people from her church were also uncomfortable with the subject matter. To them, hearing voices translates to demons and possession and the need to get closer to God. Friends, especially the modern, educated kind, were uneasy about a public admission that she hears voices. "She's lost her mind," another mutual friend said.
To me felt like too much nakedness in public. I worry that there will be a backlash because she touches on a lot of sensitive topics and discloses many things about her family and upbringing that I would not choose to disclose if it was my family. But then, it's not my story, is it? It's hers and I'm glad for her that she is able to tell it. Which is why I supported her.
Ole works in broadcasting (director, TV News) so she knows a lot of people in the media who can help her spread the word. An interview with a major radio station was arranged right there at the event, broadening the people she can reach. I'm blogging about it, and I expect several people will also do the same.
The way forward
She still has to deal with the challenge of getting a hard copy of the book into people's hands. There is also a documentary in the works. Of course there is! As a director, that is the medium she's most comfortable with.
I learnt a lot from her process and will be taking some of those lessons into my own work. I hope some of what I'm sharing is also useful to you.
With the exception of entries specifically credited to individual authors, the content on this blog is copyrighted by Damaria Senne and may not be reprinted without permission.
