Little Threads of Change

Little Threads of Change

‘Wayúu’ Should Care About Colombia

By Mike Critelli | Photos by Jill Critelli
May 30, 2024

Can one person change the world? 

One would hope. 

Despite the urge to feel helpless in the face of huge, modern challenges — a single person seemingly insignificant among eight billion — the Internet has collapsed the gap between places and people. Now, a poem written in Pakistan can make someone cry in Alaska. A dance routine performed in Zimbabwe can inspire a teenager in Sweden. And a product made anywhere can be sold and shipped, well, anywhere else.

Although we access it wirelessly at short range, the vast Internet is transmitted long-distance through fibers. Multimode cable fiber optics, packets of plastic strands, each hundreds of times thinner than a human hair.

So, really, what binds us together are millions upon millions of tiny, little threads.

Meet Jackie Gilbert

In mid-January, I attended a friend’s baby shower in the Funk Zone with my wife, Jill, Santa Barbara Independent Production Designer and photographer par excellence. That’s where we bumped into Jackie, the 30-year-old executive director of a Santa Barbara–based nonprofit that helps Indigenous women of Colombia sell masterfully woven handbags to a worldwide audience.

It’s natural, at functions like these, to play the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” game. (“How do you know ____?”) Apparently, our mutual friend, the mama-to-be, used to live next to Jackie and her boyfriend, whose band played concerts in their driveway during COVID.

That left us with even more questions. No, really, who is this person? Where did she come from? Jackie seemed unusually poised and ambitious to be sipping a beer in a bar with us in our carefree tourist town. We talked for two whole hours about how she wound up in La Guajira, the northernmost tip of Colombia, and therefore all of South America. How her interest in water equity led her to impoverished Indigenous communities waging war against energy conglomerates tearing up their landscape to mine some of the cleanest-burning coal on earth. She told us about the drug trade, the inequality, the exploitation, and, finally, the need for justice. 

“I’m heading down soon,” Jackie said. “My nonprofit, One Thread Collective, has a retreat planned later this spring to spend time with our weavers, the women of the Wayúu tribe. It’s only board members right now, but you two should consider joining us.”

How It Began

Jackie first came to La Guajira five years ago, a Fulbright researcher and activist looking to support front-line defenders blocking a major mining company from exploiting the region’s resources and people. Unfortunately, she soon discovered that nearly everyone she met — including her first roommate — had ties to the mining company, employed by corrupt government agencies, or else “greenwashing” firms like the Cerrejón Foundation.

The lone exception was Paula Restrepo, a former PR pro who operated an old-fashioned bed and breakfast meant as “a safe place for women,” whom Jackie met during her first week. Paula, just as intense and ambitious, became a mentor, and after Jackie stayed at Paula’s B&B, the two kept in touch with long lunch conversations about how best to make a difference.

Jackie envisioned taking part in the ongoing lawsuit against the mining company. Sue the mines! Paula advocated for a different approach. Something truly radical….

Bags.

Untangling History

Let’s go back even further. On Christopher Columbus’s third voyage, the Spaniards “discovered” South America. Landing on an island off the coast of Venezuela, they saw natives diving from canoes to fish while adorned with shimmering pearls, plentiful and easy to find.

The colonial reaction to finding an exotic, exploitable resource was predictably horrific and depressing. The Spaniards enslaved the natives, forcing the males to dive for pearls every waking moment. They weren’t fit for it. Their bodies gave out, lungs bursting underwater. Most native divers only lasted two to three years. This was unsustainable, of course, until an equally horrific “solution” was found: import slaves from North Africa who could survive the workload and increase productivity.

The operation was later moved to La Guajira and continued for decades until two things happened: First, the coast was picked clean of pearls and remains so to this day, and second, many of the African slaves escaped and went deep downriver, where they met and intermarried with the disproportionate number of female natives.

Centuries after Columbus, it’s hard to say what “Indigenous” means. The modern-day Wayúu — a word, in their language, that means simply “the people” — are descendants of Native tribes of Latin America, Spaniards, and African peoples. Their spoken-word myths say they learned to weave from a magical spider, yet they were undeniably influenced as well by crochet techniques of evangelical French and Dutch nuns who came to the Americas in the 1800s.

A true melting pot, the Wayúu people represent the best and worst of new-world colonialism: a culture rich with resilience that allowed them to adapt and survive into the modern era, and a people from whom nearly everything was stolen a very long time ago.

Paula, it turns out, is part Wayúu. She learned this in her forties, as her father kept it a secret. There’s racism and classism down there, as here, and the darker-skinned La Guajirans were largely abandoned by the government after the marijuana and cocaine booms of the 1970s and ’80s. (Jackie can give you an earful about the harm caused by America’s obsession with cocaine, not to mention the vile chemical treatment used to distill it.) To this day, La Guajira has no clean drinking water, with two exceptions: the estates where the energy company managers live — a gated community among ghettos — and the ports from which their coal ships sail out to the world.

So much trauma to untangle. Yet, despite the region’s knotted past, Wayúu women have spent centuries weaving beauty.

“Mochilas” are their signature piece: crossbody bags that come in all sizes and designs. They’re durable, stylish yet minimalist, and Colombians use them as everyday functional items. Yet the majority of mochilas sold in Colombia come through middlemen, and the artisans barely break even. 

When Paula explained the scope of this issue to Jackie, a light bulb went off. Selling mochilas and providing fair wages — how hard could it be?

Small Is Mighty

Jill and I joined Jackie in Colombia, because … how could we not? Her passion was infectious, and a few other Santa Barbarans came, too: Gabi Pereverziev, a holistic healer and digital marketer who documented the trip for social media; and Nicole Borboroglu, a tough, funny Argentinian dancer who was Jackie’s co-lead. 

Nicole remembers spotting Jackie struggling to sell bags at a festival in S.B. “This poor white girl,” she laughed. They started chatting, and soon Nicole was behind the booth herself, wheeling and dealing. Granted, much of Nicole’s success came from looking and sounding more “authentic” than Jackie, and some sales came with condescending quips: “Are you sending this money back to your family in Colombia? I hope it helps!” 

(This begs the question, “What does a ‘poor white girl’ like Jackie gain by traveling across the world to help struggling people instead of those here in America?” Don’t worry, we’ll get there.)

Last but not least was Lucy Gamble, one of Jackie’s childhood friends, a tech manager with wanderlust who hiked the Appalachian trail and recently made the leap to living full-time on a catamaran in the Atlantic. She’s a One Thread Collective boardmember, too, and she recalled an early Zoom meeting where Jackie said, “Listen, I had no intention of starting a bag company!”

Jackie remembered that moment. “I was young. I wanted something fiery! Impactful!” She came to Colombia to change the world all at once. But selling bags became its own crusade.

Early in Jackie’s field research about the impacts of coal mining, she visited a remote desert community called Kululumana. At first, the residents were openly hostile to alijunas (non-Wayúu), choosing to speak only among themselves in their native language, Wayuunaiki. Finally, an hour later, the coffee was ready. (Like Americans, Wayúu can’t function without coffee.) Caffeinated and fired up, they began to unload their grievances.

The Wayúu were tired of aspiring white saviors who did charity for a few weeks to feel better about themselves, or NGOs holding groundbreaking ceremonies for photo ops, then reallocating funds and leaving behind half-finished infrastructure. Everyone always used them for their own selfish gain, a tradition that went unchecked for centuries. 

Jackie listened respectfully and promised she’d be different.

A Note About ‘Fair Trade Certified’

What is Fair Trade? “First, it’s not about price,” Paula Restrepo explained. “‘Fair Trade’ doesn’t automatically mean ‘expensive,’ as some people think; it’s about where that money goes.”

For example, “Payment of a Fair Price” — one of the 10 principles outlined by the World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO) — could be interpreted to mean operating in regions where the median salary is $1 and paying a “high” wage of $1.50. Sadly, some companies follow the letter of the law without the spirit, doing the bare minimum to earn the coveted WFTO certification.

Fair Trade is a great start to the conversation, but it can’t be the last word. One Thread Collective is a nonprofit that operates according to Fair Trade principles without the label, and ethically goes further in terms of “Providing Capacity Building” (educational programs for women and children), as well as allocating funds for needs Fair Trade doesn’t address, like emergency medical costs.

Bottom line: a “Fair Trade Certified” logo shouldn’t just be a fashion statement, a box to be checked. All companies should be required to behave with greater ethical standards to do business in a globalized world. 

Making Real Change

First, she kept her word, building trust and learning their language bit by bit. (“Good day” to an individual is “Hamaya-piya.” To a group: “Hamaya-hiya.” To say “I come from a faraway place,” as Jackie had, is, “Wata-hey, wata-yah,” along with a sweeping arm gesture.) Next, Jackie kept returning, with new orders to fill, or interest-free micro-loans: $40 for a hand-cranked corn grinder here, $60 for a solar-powered charger there. 

“Small is mighty,” Jackie told us. This became a guiding principle. One woman at a time, one community at a time, never rushing the process.

She also added, half-jokingly, that it’s easier to make change in an undeveloped region halfway across the world than here in America. In La Guajira, you can set up a roadside shop and sell small goods with no permit, or take a tract of land, add goats and chickens, and start a farm. A traditional Wayúu dwelling of mud and sticks goes up in a week, fortified with more mud as needed. String some cacti together for an unconventional but thoroughly effective fence, and you’re done.

In La Guajira, like nowhere else, Jackie can accomplish so much as just one person. 

Then again, she isn’t just one person. 

She’s got her advisory board spread across American and the world, including One Thread Collective cofounder Megan Battaglia who is creating a market for mochilas in Australia.

She’s got her administrative team in Riohacha, the capital of La Guajira, where One Thread Collective holds quality-control meetings and workshops.

She’s got her network of more than 100 Wayúu artisans, producing the finest mochilas on the market, with clever innovations adapted to Western tastes, like makeup bags, water-bottle holsters, or laptop cases.

She’s got Martín López González, the ex-Exxon employee who swapped sides and is now a newspaper columnist and historian. (He provided the story of Columbus and the divers.)

Finally, there’s Paula, who made it her mission to show Jackie how vital this work can be. “Mochilas aren’t just bags,” Paula said, with an eye on public relations. “Make sure your story explains that.” Not old, stale knickknacks of the past, but an active culmination of art-making history for these people — “the people” — where every bag sold provides immediate benefit to a real person in a real place, since One Thread Collective is currently the most ethical, international mochila brand in the world.

Wayúu Should Care

In the end, “small is mighty” was proven true.

Most of the communities that did sue the energy companies got tied up in years of litigation. Of those that won, the sudden infusion of money wrecked families and friendships through greed and envy. The same way most lottery winners burn through their millions fast, you can’t solve big problems with nothing but cash.

One must be deliberate, strategic, and patient to make change. Start with tools you already have: the Wayúu, master weavers, and Jackie, with web commerce. This allows Wayúu women to earn enough for their families so their men don’t get desperate enough to work for the mining companies. Baby steps, to shift the trend from resource extraction to resource creation.

Although One Thread Collective is young, Jackie’s “small” business has already moved mountains. During our solidarity trip, we took a weaving class from the artisans of a rancheria called Tocoromana. We slept overnight in another village called Hiotshy, open-air, in traditional hand-woven hammocks known as chinchorros, serenaded by goats, crickets, and the Christian-Waiyuunaiki hymns of a 100-year-old elder who graciously offered Jackie a permanent dwelling, for she had become family. We drank chicha, a flavored corn porridge, and ate arepas as Jackie argued the finer points of sustainability with a village leader, and as Nicole organized a game for the children to pick up plastic litter in exchange for new school supplies and donated clothes.

We also got to see what Paula is up to these days. 

With Jackie and Megan handling One Thread Collective, Paula started a school, La Casa Para los Niños, in an impoverished area where she has gradually introduced vegetables and unprocessed food into the children’s diet and is awaiting bridge funds to finish one of the town’s few working toilets. She also runs a monthly leadership program — sponsored by One Thread Collective, held in their office — called “La Escuela Yala’yalaa ” (yala’yalaa is Waiyuunaiki for “valiant” or “empowered”). There, the women connect over the pressing issues facing their respective communities, and brainstorm solutions. After sharing a meal of braised goat and coconut rice, we heard their testimonies.

“I’ve developed so much, as an artist and person,” said one. “I used to be shy. Now I’m funny,” said another. Afterward, Paula pointed to each and said, “These women were our original weavers. I’ve known them for 10 years.” Looking at them, then to Jackie, Paula added proudly, “I’m lucky, when it comes to people.”

If the original sins of the Americas were led largely by men, taking and taking until nothing was left, the future may be woven by women, thread by thread, from the ground up. The pattern has been started, but will take many hands to complete: more buyers, more donors, more volunteers. 

If I leave you with nothing else, it’s that amazing change can happen at a global scale, right from our own backyard. Whether we realize it or not, people, we’re all connected.

Visit onethreadcollective.org for additional information, or Flow Yoga and Wellness (sbflowyoga.com) to shop for One Thread Collective goods locally.