Tourists who visit my pottery pay a contact fee of 500 shillings, about fifty cents, for each group. It becomes part of my daily income and usually helps me buy food.
By local standards, it is easy money. To earn the same amount in the usual way, I would need to make ten pots and sell all of them at the market. That takes a full day. When tourists visit, I can continue shaping my pots while they watch and still receive the additional fee.
Five hundred shillings from one visiting group equals a full day of making and selling ten pots at the market.
My daughters help me at home and attend school only three days a week. Before tourists began visiting, children did not normally take part in pottery. Now they make cups and other small objects to sell. They start working younger because they see an opportunity to earn money.
This worries me. When one child sells something, others want to do the same. The income helps families immediately, but fewer children remain fully involved in school. Tourism has increased the value of their labour before their education is complete.
Visitors usually ask where the clay comes from, how I make the pots, what they cost and where we sell them. I enjoy their interest and like imagining that they may talk about us after returning home.
Some local women tried making batiks for tourists, but sales were poor. Lushoto is often not the final stop on a visitor’s holiday. People do not want to carry souvenirs throughout the rest of their journey, so they wait and buy something shortly before flying home.
A souvenir may be beautiful, but if tourists visit the producer too early in their holiday, many decide it is still too long to carry it around, and they will not buy.
I do not mind being photographed, although I like people to ask. I am especially pleased when somebody sends a copy afterward. We do not have our own cameras, so visitors sometimes create the only photographs we possess.
I would welcome more tourists—perhaps ten or fifteen each day. I am less certain about very large numbers. People can behave differently when they travel in big groups. We have not experienced serious problems, but growth should remain at a level the community can understand and manage.
Tourism lets me earn a day’s pottery income while continuing to work, but its true cost is harder to calculate when my daughters spend more time beside the wheel and less inside the classroom.