Birds of a Feather

By nancylee bouscher

Looking back, most of my childhood memories in a vehicle involve one of two main themes—my brother and I fighting in the back seat, and by fighting, I mean he is antagonizing me until I whine or hit him, either way fulfilling his big brother role. Or, I am sitting away from my brother, unrestrained in the way back of a station wagon or in the bed of a pick-up truck being jostled about as I watch the road we are traveling through hindsight.

Obviously, I preferred the latter, even when it caused mild car sickness and the air conditioning didn’t reach me, because long before tablets or even Walkmans, my brain was the best escape. I made up stories about every car we passed to answer the endless questions my brain asked as we followed a path forward that I could not see. No doubt this solitary time staring out the rear window helped me to hone some of my strongest skills: rumination and reflection.

These days, I do the driving, so the hmmm-ing and haaa-ing takes place on my back porch with my aging cats lounging next to me. My dog comes out to bark at the neighbor’s horse or the brave squirrel, while the goats destroy any tree I haven’t adequately armored against their endless nibbling. After years of having many chickens, we are down to one lone hen, Amelia, that follows the goats around and whose sprinkling of food attracts an assortment of wild birds. There are shy mourning doves that perch along the fence and will only venture onto the porch rail if I sit still for so long I fall asleep, the brave chickadees that flit to the seeds before I have even finished scattering, and the obnoxious Steller’s jay that swoops in and shoos off all the other sparrows, finches, and thrushes whose names I do not yet know.

The spontaneous and unpredictable visits of birds remind me of the best part of my job at the Co-op. While some folks enjoy the consistent routine of their work, I cherish the spice that each customer interaction brings to my day and the challenge of helping them to find an answer, solve a problem, or maybe just give them another human to chat with. Balanced with the ordering, sales reports, time cards, and invoices of my desk work, I am honestly so perplexed that I managed to find a job that fits me so perfectly, and few things fill my heart more than being surrounded by other folks who have chosen a career at a food co-op.

Nancylee & Christal of the Wellness Department with Olowo-n’djo

Almost every year, I travel to St. Paul, Minnesota, to attend a big old conference put on by National Cooperative Grocers (NCG), the cooperative that over 150 food co-ops belong to. NCG allows co-ops to have better buying power to negotiate the sale prices you see on our shelves, access to resources some smaller co-ops may not be able to afford, and a network of fellow cooperators. Just as you make equity payments to be a member-owner of our Co-op, we pay dues to NCG. The annual conference for grocery and wellness departments, known as Convergence, is one of many conferences NCG puts on for co-op staff. Other conferences focus on marketing, food production, or management.

At every Convergence I’ve been to, there’s just something special that reignites my lil’ cooperative heart, and this year, it was the presentation by Olowo-n'djo Tchala, who with his then wife, Prairie Rose, co-founded Alaffia, a local personal care company in Olympia, Washington in 2003. We have proudly carried Alaffia’s shea and black soap products since the very earliest years, not just because of the quality of the products, but because of the values of the brand: to help improve the lives of the women who harvest and process shea nuts in Tchala’s home country of Togo. Some of you may remember the light purple bottles with the gold lids of lotions and creams that then evolved to the Everyday Shea and Everyday Coconut value bottles of hair care, body wash, lotions, and bubble baths.

Around 2012, Olowo-n’djo stopped by our Co-op with two family members who worked as midwives in one of the maternity clinics Alaffia built to help combat the high mortality rate of expectant mothers. They shared photos of the many programs that product sales funded, including schools and the economic impact these sales have on the families. For the next decade, we heavily promoted and supported Alaffia, doing what we could to boost sales by sharing their story with shoppers, collecting reading glasses to send to Togo, and bringing in any new products presented to us.

In the last few years, we noticed troubling signs—discontinued products, changes in labels, and difficulty reaching the company. This is not uncommon when a company reaches a certain size. Many of you have a favorite company that has been bought by a larger company or receives investment money that influences the company in ways that redirect you to a different option. During the presentation at Convergence, Olowo-n’djo shared the ups and downs of Alaffia, from his attempt to retire, the end of his marriage, involvement of investors, loss of millions of dollars—and, the impact of it all on the community in Togo. During this time, he launched a new company, AYÉYA, that filled the hole left when changes at Alaffia occurred. After several years of turmoil, he is now back as the CEO of Alaffia and AYÉYA. We are ecstatic that both brands are now available in our Wellness department, and we can once again confidently recommend these products, knowing your dollars will go toward fair-trade wages for the women of Togo.

Olowo-n’djo looked back on his life, the harsh reality his mother endured as an indentured servant and a victim of violent assault, and the ways she taught him to always care for others, sharing no matter how little they had. Footage from an upcoming documentary about his journey brought as much joy as it did tears to the audience, showing the power of cooperation in ways that feel less frequent in our current times. Like the jays, we swoop in a little too intensely at times, loudly claiming what we feel is OURS, even when there is more than enough for all. Or, maybe we shy away too easily, flying back to the shelter of thick branches to coo quietly about the injustice of those who take too much. I’ve been both at times.

Being at the Co-op, brings out my chickadee approach—brave, curious, and willing to join up with other odd birds, while tapping into that goofy kid with thick plastic glasses and crooked braids stuck in the way back of a Ford Escort, waving at strangers as they drive by—looking forward and backward—gleeful when they glance over and wave back