Patience pays for ex-clerk keen on banana stem art

While most of his neighbours in Maua value miraa (khat) twigs, Samuel Njiru’s focus is elsewhere. Before and after retrenchment as a government clerk, he has found joy and good cash in literally cutting and pasting dry banana tree stems.

For 15 years, he has been earning by making artworks from the stems, which otherwise are thrown away to rot or are fed to livestock. His mosaics have given him a new picture of earning and sharpened his power of imagination, something that Napoleon Hill lists as the route to success.

The 62-year-old was introduced to the banana bark art by his civil service colleague back in 1980.

Meru County is a big producer of bananas where most farmers value the fruits but destroy the stems. “I was introduced to creating artistic impressions using banana barks by one of my colleagues who has since passed on. He was a trained artist,” Mr Njiru told the Business Daily.

He makes portraits of animals, prominent people and places of worship.

While still working for the government, the art business was his side job and took the bulk of his time during the weekends, selling at the nearby market centres. But it was a joint business and he relied on his trainer’s tools.

After the trainer was transferred to another station of work, Mr Njiru spent about Sh5,000 to buy equipment such as a tin of glue, some pieces of hard cardboard as well as a special knife.

The artist, who works from his house, sells a minimum of 20 items if the sales are low and about 80 pieces a month during the peak season. The cheapest items, which are also smaller in size, go for Sh900 while the larger ones retail at Sh7,500.

But they are slow-moving products, he declares, and some of his trainees have been walking away after realising the business hinges on “patience and commitment.”

Mr Njiru, who was retrenched in 2000, told Enterprise that he earns between Sh40,000 and Sh80,000 a month.

He displays his items at Maua Basin Hotel but also markets them to missionaries who come to his local church every year.

Tourists heading to the Meru National Park also frequent Maua town, giving the father of four another layer of customers.
“Most of my clients are foreigners who have been visiting Maua Methodist Church yearly. They have always loved my creativity and each time they tour Meru they buy some pieces,” he said.

Due to the unpredictable market trends, he converted part of his semi-permanent house living room into a workshop “to cut cost of rent and electricity.”

He works alone because the few people he trained to help him were not patient due to lack of ready market.

“The products do not have ready market as many think. It is a field that requires a lot of patience and commitment in order to get good sales,” the former civil servant explains.

“The retrenchment came as a shock but I decided to accept the situation and moved on,” he said.

Mr Njiru says he trained five youth who were paid on commission but they left due to low pay. “Many youth are not patient and that is why all of them vanished.

“I call upon the county and national governments to find alternative strategies of helping find markets for such products to boost the economy and talents.”