I moved to Tanzania in the summer of 2017 and started a tour business called Mawenzi Adventures at the beginning of 2019. It took off better than I could have ever imagined but a few months later the entire world got hit by Covid, and you can probably guess the devastating effect that had on my business and tourism in general. It took me a few months to deal with all the postponed and cancelled trips and by the time that was done, it became clear to me that this was going to last longer than just a few months. I’m not the kind of person who likes to sit still or watch Netflix all day, so I took the second hand sewing machine that I’d accidentally found a few months earlier out of the closet and started sewing. It wasn’t the first time I’d used a sewing machine but I still had lots of things to learn, so Youtube became my best friend over the next couple of weeks. It was totally not my goal to turn it into something profitable at that point, but I’ve always been a big fan of designer handbags and before I knew it I had sewn together a collection that was too big for me to use by myself. So I started participating in some crafts and Christmas markets and as the initial sales and feedback were incredibly positive and I don’t like half work, it didn’t take long before I decided to create social media profiles, build a website and start taking this idea seriously.