She fell, but Wamuranga still holds onto her Kitengi

Even after losing her entire loan facility, she intended to inject in the business, to a fraudulent business partner who disappeared with it, Brigitte Wamuranga did not waver from her dream of pursuing the business of dressing women and men in African fabric, Kitengi. She had already tasted the sweet fruits of a similar business, first when she worked for someone, and briefly after setting up her own outfit. So, not even the loss of her house to repay the bank loan stolen by a business partner could shake her faith in that business and her determination to make money from the very trade that had gotten her fingers terribly burnt. Whoever has been to the swimming pool side of Umubano Hotel in the last ten years or so knows or has seen Brigitte Wamuranga and has felt her infectious smile. She is the lady with that neat display of colorful Kitengi African fabrics at a corner of the Jambo Jambo Restaurant terrace as one walks towards the swimming pool. On display, during each day of the week, is a wide array of hand-tailored shirts, dresses, suukas, and hand bags with flamboyant designs—all made by a team of tailors at her home in the City of Kigali suburb of Kabuga, under her close supervision. Before venturing into the kitengi business of her own, Wamuranga worked as a manager for a shop that sold similar products from West Africa. It is here that she cut her teeth in the business. “It was a good business but the lady who owned it didn’t have enough time for it. When it closed down, I saw it as a good opportunity for me to try out something similar,” she says. It worked. To get started, she took a loan of Rwf 50,000 from a friend, money that she used to buy some materials from which she made her first stock of a few shirts and dresses. With no permanent address of her own, she sold clients in corporate organisation through physical delivery. For the next three months after the got started, Wamuranga hawked the shirts and dresses from door-to-door; beginning with friends and other people she already knew. “The money was coming in, but selling from door-to-door was very challenging because most people thought the clothes I was selling were of low value and quality. Payment also took a long process because most people in offices would take things on credit.” It is with this in mind that she went and sought out a small exhibition space at the Hotel de Mille Collines, from where she begun to hold exhibitions after every two weeks. Satisfied with the results, she later paid for a permanent stall at the same hotel, from which she operated for the next five months. Losing Rwf 10m In 2008, Mille Collines closed down to renovation, forcing all boutique owners at the facility to look elsewhere for operating space. At the time, Wamuranga operated a workshop at Remera, with several sewing machines and tailors. After the closure of her boutique at Mille Collines, Wamuranga was thinking of how to come back on the market in a big way: “I took a loan of Rwf 10m from a commercial bank. I had a business partner who I sent with Rwf 8m to purchase raw materials from West Africa, but unfortunately he disappeared with all the money. The business went down and I closed the shop to begin repaying the loan until 2012. I even sold my house that was at Kicukiro just to pay the bank loan.” After repaying the bank loan, Wamuranga started all over again in her business. She hired four skilled tailors on permanent terms, and employed them at her workshop which also doubles as a home, in Kabuga. Using part of her residence as a workshop was a clever move that would ensure that she kept her operating costs low to enable the business recover faster. Wamuranga describes her stall at the Umubano Hotel as “more of an address really.” “People come and choose materials, we design and make them from home, then bring here,” she says. Her typical day starts early every morning when she joins her tailors in cutting pieces and making finishing touches on products between 7:00-9:00am. After that, she either heads to her stall at the Umubano Hotel, or goes to meet potential clients for business deals. “Most of my clients are actually Rwandans,” she reveals. “The men like the kitengi shirts. The West African Woodin Kitengi is the most popular.” The most sought-after men’s kitengi shirt goes for about Rwf 60,000 while one could walk away with a souvenir shirt or scarf at Rwf 5,000. She sources for the kitengi fabrics from as far as Ghana, and Ivory Coast, where she maintains a network of suppliers. “There is the Kitengi from China, which is relatively cheap but is very common, so it’s not good in business sense.” Although she started out dealing only in kitengi designs, now she supplements this with uniforms for security companies, schools, and corporate companies. Her dream is to set up a shop that deals exclusively in African wear: “I like the African touch and before the end of this year I will have a shop for African prints and fabrics only.” Wamuranga describes kitengi as a highly versatile material that can suit nearly any occasion. “Kitengi is good for ceremonies, for home, for business, meetings, weddings …it all depends on the print. You can make a suit, a dress, shirt, wrap, etc,” she says, adding proudly: “I like it when women come to me just for advice on what to wear. Personally too kitengi is my wear for smartness and comfort.” Kitenge is arguably the most dominant wear in Africa today. A stroll down town any time and any day will reveal that hardly a minute passes without seeing a lady in a Kitenge dress and a gentle man in a shirt of made of the same. Most women wear the fabric tied around their waists in the style of a sarong, long skirts or dresses. Traditionally a western African wear, Kitenge is a wax print cotton fabric, made by imprinting a pattern of melted wax onto the fabric and then dying it. Wamuranga attributes her success in the trade to her willingness to confront the unknown: “I started with what I had. I begun with five to six dresses and shirts, which I moved with from office to office, trying to convince people to buy them.” A big lesson she has learnt on the job is that “people don’t attach a lot of value to what you are selling when you don’t have an address. Most of them will want to take things on credit, and sometimes they don’t even pay.”