Happiness that’s how cultural entrepreneur Iris Elise Calistro defines success and it permeates her voice. “I’m a happy lady,” she laughs.
Calistro, who hails from Macaseema, a satellite village of Kabakaburi in the Upper Pomeroon, started The Real Thing – which sells indigenous crafts and food she and her family produce, as well as source from other persons – in 2011 after receiving an invitation to the Heritage Exhibition. “I gathered the craft from the young people and brought it to Georgetown,” she recalled.
A woman of many talents, Calistro said she turned to the craft business after things got hard at the 20-acre farming cooperative she and 13 other women operated that Viola Burnham, her dream mentor, helped get started. “We started with corn,” she reminisced, and then planted black-eyed peas, watermelon, etc. Calistro, who was always set on being her own boss, in her quest for self-sufficiency also owned a grocery shop, but the proud Amerindian-Guyanese has always been creative. A skilled seamstress, she has to her credit, among numerous outfits, many costumes and three wedding dresses. With maternal pride spilling over, she recounted how she made three beautiful costumes, including one of knitted cotton twine, for her youngest who was selected to represent the village at the Miss Amerindian Heritage competition.
“Even now, she quarrel with me since I sold her cotton costume and tell me I have to make it again,” she chuckles ruefully. Nonetheless, her children have all been very supportive of their mom and the business, assisting her in making some of the items.
Calistro, who divides her time between her home village and her residence in Supply, East Bank Demerara, collects most of the raw materials she uses to make her hammocks, clay figures, tibisri and coconut fibre crafts much as her ancestors did – in the Pomeroon, with the help of her grandchildren. The evocative designs come from her rich imagination. “Like a dream… I see it [the completed item] in front of me… Sometimes when I travel in the bus, I see it in front of me and when I get home, I draw the design.” Fashion designer Sonia Noel has also been a big influence on her.
As for the products she sources from other persons, after some members of the youth group died and others moved away, Calistro decided to change her business model and purchase the craft items, paying producers for their work up front and taking all of the risk herself. “And if I fail, I fail.”
“Go 100 per cent, not half and half,” she urged persons who want to open their own businesses. The most important trait of entrepreneurs is knowing what you want, added Calistro, who has persevered in her entrepreneurial dreams through married life and raising nine children. “Business is 50-50, sometimes up, sometimes down.” That is particularly true for ventures like The Real Thing; problems obtaining some raw materials compound the issue. September, Heritage Month, is Calistro’s best month as demand for her products is at its highest.
After stressing the importance of bookkeeping to business survival, she said loans and technical training were needed to help entrepreneurs succeed. The ultimate goal for the jovial indigenous craft and food maven, who enjoys working in many mediums, is sustainability.
She hopes her story inspires indigenous persons to be independent and chase after their dreams.
The Real Thing will be at the Heritage Village, Sophia Exhibition Site, with its products on show, including the bestselling cassava bread and cassareep.
Contact: Macaseema Kabakaburi, Upper Pomeroon River/17 Public Road, Supply, East Bank Demerara I 266-5828/610-0335/674-3606
