Today my wife Colleen brought home these beautiful Vietnamese handmade nesting baskets from her day out at the Sheep & Wool Festival in Tunbridge. The baskets have their own story to tell, which I will come to shortly, but first: another basket “case”.
In disclosure, my mother will not be reading this, so there is no worry that I’m about to spill the beans. We already have a set of these same baskets which Colleen purchased 15 years ago and which we use daily. Colleen remembered when she saw them that my mom had expressed interest in our baskets, so she bought them.
I know that my mom loves baskets. She sometimes goes to great lengths to obtain them. Back in the mid-eighties, Michael Jackson played what must have been a sold-out concert in Montreal. The hotel in which he stayed donated the unwashed pillow cases Michael had used to the Vermont Public Television auction that year. They were displayed on the TV auction in…wait for it…a basket! Those pillowcases had tell-tale makeup stains on them, and this I know because my mom bid on the item and won! As one may surmise, she was not so interested in the pillowcases; rather the basket.
At the time Mom was living part-time in Pittsfield, MA (where the auction had not been seen) and while there, she advertised in the local paper that she had Michael’s pillowcases for sale. Not surprisingly, the ad piqued the interest of the paper’s editor, hence an article with pictures. The end result? Two very happy little girls! And Mom had her basket.
Now – back to the nesting baskets. I noted the “Made in Vietnam” sticker on the bottom, and wondered about the sweatshop the baskets had come from. Colleen must have sensed my thought, so she explained to me that a California-based organization (whose name I do not have at my fingertips) that distributes the baskets is part of a very short chain of economic prosperity that goes back to the village in which the baskets are made. The baskets are picked up fair-trade style by the organization, which uses the money from sales to send promising young Vietnamese locals to college in the USA. The students then return to the local area to teach.
The bambu baskets that are now resting in our house have been lovingly made by hand, then hardened over a smoky fire. They put out a wondrous earthy aroma that you can only smell if you are deliberate about using your nose. From someone’s campfire halfway around the world to my living room. How ’bout that?
Who would have thought that a basket could tell a story? Well, they just told two.
