4: San Jacinto
Saturday, October 24th, we went to San Jacinto, which is a trading spot for Zenú crafts. It gave us an insight into the different techniques and varieties of different mochilas (bags), sombreos (hats), drums, and hammocks that we haven't seen in Cartagena. Here, new products also appeared in shape of baskets and rugs in different sizes and colors.
Even though the selection of items and the handwork was impressive, it is clear that some of the choices when making the items are problematic for an international customer. The choice of colors together, the combinations of materials used in single objects (woven fabric, caña flecha, beads and more), the use of velcro, platics zippers and poor sewing jobs made the quality of the projducts seem poorer - this is especially something we will focus on in the development of the impressive Zenú crafts. The techniques that are used for weaving and sowing together the beautiful patterns deserve much more attention than what is given now. It suprised us that there wasen't a lot of products that we had not already seen in Cartagena.
