Our Artisans

Anne: Hello, my name is Anne. I live in Plaine Magnien, and I have been in the vacoas craft trade for quite a long time. I can say I've been doing this for about forty years now.

​How I got into it was through my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law, and my great-aunts—they were all practicing this craft. Later on, they chose me to join in because, how should I put it, life was tough and I needed to work. I used to leave my children behind to go to work. So they told me: "No, sit here. We will teach you the trade, and you can watch over your children at the same time." And that is truly what happened. Since then, it was like love at first sight with this craft, and I just kept going. So here I am today; I am very happy with what I do, and I'd love to continue for as long as I can. ​

Interviewer: All right. Could you explain the preparation steps for these products a bit? ​Anne: Well, to make a woven bag (tente), first of all, we need to use vacoas (Pandanus). The vacoas is a green plant, and we have to harvest the leaves while they are still green. To prepare them—since the leaves have thorns on them—we must remove the thorns.

After that, we prepare the strips, like the ones you see here. We prepare the strips, but before they look like this, we have to dry them. We have to dry them in the sun. ​Once they are completely dry, there is another step before we... What I'm doing right now is preparing my raw material. Before I can prepare the raw material—because it gets stiff when it comes out of the sun—I have to moisten it. I place it in a damp towel and let it soften up a bit.

After that, I can prepare it through a process we call "rubbing" (frotter). I rub the vacoas strip because, before it is prepared, it tends to curl up. In that state, we can't work with it. When we rub it, we flatten it out. From that point on, we can start weaving. ​Now let me show you. Here, my raw material is fully prepared. I have rubbed it thoroughly, which means it is soft, both because I moistened it and because I rubbed it down.

Now that it is pliable, I can work with it. ​The stage I am getting to right now is making the base. When making the base, I learned to do it on the floor, and to this day, I still do it on the floor. While some people might do it on a table, I feel much more comfortable this way because I can use my feet to hold it in place without needing anything else. Right now, I am laying down the base. ​There you go. Everything with this base depends on the size of the bag I want to make. Whether I want a small bag or a large basket, as we call it.

We need to know how to arrange it and count the strips. Counting depends on the dimensions of the basket I want to weave: the more strips I add, the larger the basket, and the fewer I use, the smaller it will be. ​Another important factor is the length of the vacoas strip. If the leaf is short, I won't be able to make a large basket. But if the vacoas strip is long enough, as you can see here, I can achieve good dimensions—a bag large enough for someone to take to the market, go shopping with, or use for laundry. ​So there it is, I have laid it out... and now I continue working on the base until it is finished according to the desired dimensions.

Interviewer: All right. Can you tell us a bit about the different products you've created in your shop? ​Anne: Oh, so many products! I forgot to mention earlier that over the years since I started, I also had the opportunity to take training courses. ​

​Anne: I took advanced skill courses and creativity workshops, which allowed me to design new items rather than just sticking to basics.