Last weekend Nathan and I visited an olive wood shop in town, to pick up wedding favors for a friend who had to leave a few months ago due to COVID. This shop, which is also Christian ministry, produces a lot of the beautiful olive wood products in the area. This past year Caleb's class visited for a field trip, and I know one of the ladies running the place, but had never visited before. The shop had been closed for 3 months and had just re-opened a few days before, and they were all happy to get back to work. They said that the majority of their customers are tourists, so like most places here, they are hurting financially from the pandemic. The people working there were really happy to see visitors, and one of the men working there gave us a great tour, explaining the process of how they make their products.
They purchase thousands of pound of olive wood twice a year from Jerash, a city about 45 mins north of Amman. They had it stocked up in piles in the lower level of the facility.
Next, they cut the wood into smaller pieces to prepare it to make products.
This is a copy machine. The artist puts a piece of wood in each nook, this one makes eight pieces. The artist guides the machinery to carve the center piece according to the design he wants, and as the machine suggests, the other segments copy what the center piece is doing.
The man behind the bag is scooping up wood chips that were created during the shaving and carving of the wood. He comes in twice a day to bag the thicker and smoother wood pieces, and uses them on farms. The thicker pieces of wood are used in chicken coops and it helps keep the eggs warm after they are laid, and the smoother wood is used for horses in the winter. It keeps the ground soft and warm so they horses don't have to walk on the cold ground. The remaining wood that is not usable, they give to people to burn to keep their homes warm in the winter, and they keep some for the same purpose. This area is a giant garage with no insulation, and the man said in the winter time it is very warm with the wood burning.
This is an example of some pieces that came off of the copy machine.
Next, they bring the items upstairs and the ladies do the sanding, additional carving, and coating with lacquer.
The machines you see in the distance are giant sanders and buffers that are welded to a metal pole. The ladies wore masks with very thick layers of cloth between the mask and their mouths because as you can expect, it gets very dusty in there.
Pieces waiting to be dipped in lacquer.
By the time we got back upstairs and I asked if it was ok to take pictures, the ladies were all taking their lunch break. There was about 4 ladies working that day. I asked how they find people to work there, and they said they like to hire people based on recommendation, which usually means family members. They are all Muslim men and women making the products. The people working that day had been employed there between 2-15 years!
I wish I took pictures of some of the finished products, but I forgot. If you have received olive wood from us in the past, it was made by this shop. Here are the beautiful bowls that our friend had made for their wedding. We were glad to have the opportunity to visit the shop, speak with some of the people working there, and learn about all the hard work put into making each one of these products by hand.
