Basket weaving
The woven agaseke — the tall lidded peace basket — is the single most recognisable Rwandan object, and basket weaving is the backbone of the craft economy. Several export-oriented cooperatives have grown out of it, employing thousands of rural weavers between them and putting Rwandan baskets onto department store shelves in the United States. The weaving associations are typically women's groups, often mixing Tutsi and Hutu members working side by side — reconciliation in a form that pays.
Smaller cooperatives in Bugesera and the south weave fruit baskets, waste baskets, placemats and coasters, and sell them directly.
Water hyacinth
In Bugesera, a weavers' cooperative built its business around amarebe — the invasive water hyacinth that has choked lakes across the Great Lakes region. Extracting the plant was originally a government clean-up exercise; the cooperative turned it into a raw material for chairs, waste baskets and mats. It is a rare case of an environmental problem becoming an income stream, and one of the better craft stories in the country.
Cards, embroidery and knitwear
A Kigali social enterprise employs orphaned young people to make greeting cards from handmade paper, paying proper wages and training rather than piece rates. Rutongo, north of Kigali, is known for hand embroidery — tablecloths, handkerchiefs, sheets and framed panels. Knitting cooperatives, seeded with hand-operated machines and business training, produce garments for the domestic and export market. Around Rubavu, an artisan cooperative at Kanama makes brooms, banana leaf art, sculpture and woodcarving on site.
Where to buy in Kigali
If you only have a departure morning, Kigali's craft markets — the artists' village on the west side of town, and the market opposite the old Union Trade Centre in the centre — put dozens of stalls in one place, with goods from across East and Central Africa alongside Rwandan work. Prices are negotiable and expected to be negotiated. For the geometric cow-dung panels, see imigongo.