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Products
Batiks, batik post cards and collage
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The soapstone rocks are sourced in Kenya's vast Nyanza province in a place known as Tabaka. Soapstone products have become synonymous with kisii people because it is the only place in Kenya and indeed in the whole world where these particular color and type of soapstone rock mines covering over 25 kilometers squared are found. The stone comes in a variety of colours: dark reddish, pinkish, gold brown, Grey creamish and even black. The digging of these rocks is done using indigenous crude method, which is labour intensive. Due to the market potential and the easy availability of this natural resource commodity, many Kisii people have come to rely on it as one of their major source of income. The seriousness, the local people place on soapstone as their income generating activity is evidenced by the manner in which the carvers have perfected their skills. The greatest consumers of the product are tourists who often buy and take the decorative soapstone items as gifts for friends or for home decorative purposes. Some of the popular household utility are items such as candle holders which are shaped in various designs, soap dishes, fruit bowls, flower vases, animal/people figure bookends, chess sets among a variety of other beautifully carved and decorated items. Since soapstone are sourced from the local community farms, the mining and carving of the soapstone is often treated as a family's income generating activity and as such it is done at a family level. It is at the family level that marketing of the finished products to interested buyers is carried out and at times through group work or through the co-operative. The trade of soapstone comprises both the men and the women, young and old. Traditionally, it is men who do the digging of the stone from the mines or the quarry as well as carving the products in the required designs. The women's part involves polishing and washing the finished products as well as applying the shinning wax cream popularly known as cobra wax. Though soapstone is a leading export product, it happens to be a very fragile commodity, which requires extra care particularly, when it comes to handling and exporting or transferring the finished product from the rural areas to Nairobi and even to the port of destination be it in Kenya's Mombasa port or overseas. To view soapstone carvings
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