Handbags – Rural Honduras

“A crocheted piece is a lovely manifestation of a thought, expressed through hand, heart, hook and yarn.” ~Francine Toukou

It’s midnight and Ana sits in the sala putting the finishing touches on a handbag she began a week earlier. The children have been in bed for hours. It’s the only time she has to relax and concentrate on the task. This particular handbag began as a stack of used, plastic Kroger and Supermercado Paiz bags. She enjoys coming up with a unique design and combination of colors for each new bag.

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” ~Maya Angelou

In 2014, I wrote about this family living in rural, northern Honduras who had just begun a business called “New Life Handbags”. Ana and her family continue to create works of art using recycled plastic shopping bags and plastic table cloths. She has made handbags, beach bags, cell phone cases, and book or Bible covers.

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Many people have shared their used bags from Walmart, Food Lion, Kroger, Sheetz, Sharp Shopper, etc here in the states and from stores in Honduras too. Used, disposable tablecloths have also worked well. Ana actually prefers working with the tablecloths because the smoother texture is easier on the fingers. Some of the other items used are beads, old buttons, reused zippers and handles from old, worn out purses. She lines many of the handbags with new satin material, but others are left unlined and can be used at the beach or the supermarket. A college student even bought one to carry her things to the shower in her dormitory.

Preparing the “plarn”, or the plastic yarn, is a time consuming process. Her kids pitch in to help cut the bags into about 1″ strips, tie them together, and roll them into a ball of “plarn” in preparation for crocheting.

The kids have goals of well-paying careers when they grow up, something that is difficult to attain for many people in their situation. Too many days spent already in their short lives without food is a strong motivation. But for now, they are doing what they can to make ends meet. As Ana says, her family is “busy weaving like spiders.”

You can find their items for sale at NewLifeHandbagsShop on Etsy.com here.

Ana, her husband and their 8 children live in a small, rural village in Northern Honduras. Local families struggle to feed their children and send them to school. An education is necessary to move out of the cycle of poverty and food is necessary to be able to concentrate and learn. She says, “I just can’t send them to school when they haven’t eaten. It would be too painful for them and they wouldn’t be able to concentrate anyway.” Ana’s husband works 6 days a week and only see the family late in the evenings and on Sunday. But even with a full-time job there still have been days, sometimes stretches of days, when there was no food in the house. And recently they have taken in 2 more children from another family to care for.

Eight of the kids in the house are of school age, but to be able to enroll, they must be able to pay the tuition, buy uniforms and black shoes, buy notebooks and other supplies, and pay fees that come up throughout the year. Without extra income, this is not possible.

In the last 5 months, Ana and the older children have begun making handbags to sell. They are crocheted using used, plastic shopping bags. The “yarn” is created by cutting strips from the bags and tying them together into long lengths. Here, a youth group in Virginia is helping to cut the bags. The strips will soon be taken to Honduras to Ana’s “factory” on the front porch where they will be given new life.

The designs and uses are many – purses, backpacks, shopping bags, beach bags, etc. The sale of these bags brings some hope for the future now. The old plastic bags that were ending up along the road or in the landfill are now finding a new life, and so is Ana’s family.

One of Ana’s children poses in his school uniform.