Forget gold, fish bone bling now the in thing

BY HAROLD AYODO

Caroline Ogot cautiously rummages through a heap of Nile Perch bones at the Shinners Centre in Kisumu.

She does this to verify if the fish bones from the sprawling Obunga slums are fit for making jewellery. Satisfied, Ogot pays each of the women Sh600 for the fish skeletons they have delivered to the centre.

Creative artists have put into good use fish bones, which once gave the Kisumu Municipal Council a nightmare. Nowadays it is hard to come across heaps of fish bones in dumpsites.

The ornaments are popular, even fashionable women proudly wear them. From their fancy look, one would not imagine they are made of discarded fish bones.

Clementine Awino. She ditched her grocery business to collect fish bones.

"Most socialite women prefer purple ornaments as the colour is not only feminine but shows authority, organisation and love," says Ogot. Many widows from Obunga slums now earn a living from the sale of fish skeletons.

Take the case of Clementine Awino, 48, who left her job as vegetable vendor in Obunga to gather the bones.

Sharp edges

"I take two sacks of mbuta bones to Shinners Centre every month and earns Sh1,200 — far much more than I made in vegetables," says Awino.

The mother of six says she can now feed her six children and bed-ridden husband.

She has become the envy of many, some who initially scoffed at her decision to quit the grocery business. Awino, whose eldest child is 24 and the youngest is 10, has taken the bone collection business as a full time job. Ruth Obong’o, 36, who has three children, says she can feed her family thanks to the project.

Obong’o’s work is it to boil the fish bone before they are dried and sandpapered.

However, Siaka says the job has it fair share of challenges the major one being injuries caused by the skeletons’ sharp edges.

"The bones have pierced my palms on several occasions but practice makes perfect… today I am more careful," says Siaka.

He uses a small pair of pliers to cut the big bones, sand paper to smoothen and glue to join the pieces together.

"My dream is to get more clients as motivation to make more jewellery," says Siaka.