Our Newest Employees

I (Keith) thought you’d enjoy meeting our two newest employees.

Man Tiwari is one of the first Bhutanese to ever settle in Rhode Island. She arrived last month along with her husband and two children after many years in a refugee camp in Nepal.

Zera Hamenyimana, like two other women we’ve employed, is Burundian and came from a camp in Tanzania. Neither is literate in any language (some of you may be receiving a bag with an upside-down label—which I decided to leave as a tribute to our starting point).

As far as I know neither has had ever had a paying job before this one.

I took them both to Kmart earlier this week to buy tennis shoes so they’d have some appropriate footwear.

The challenges we’re facing are helping us to be resourceful.

This week I devised a system of lines on a large measuring tub, so that Man could prepare all the ingredients.

She’s already mastered some of the key vocabulary:

oats, coconut, flax, sesame... quite impressive.

During a break yesterday, they were claiming (using hand motions) that the English language goes in their ears and then flies out of their heads like birds (my interpretation). But the evidence is against them.

Thanks to those of you who keep encouraging us in this effort at mission-based business. We made 130 lbs last night, so now we’re stocked.If you think you know an appropriate market for us, let us know.We now sell 6 ounce “Go-Packs” and we’d be happy to send one as a sample if you’d make an introduction for us.We’re jumping our way through the final few hoops that will allow us to set up shop at local farmer’s markets this summer—so with luck you’ll be meeting some our employees that way soon.