How To Restore Old Cow Horns

When people started dumping rubbish effectually Kourn Chenda'south and Endeavor Sokchen's home in Prey Veng province, the couple ignored it at first.

They lived behind a hot pot restaurant and there wasn't a uncomplicated solution to rid their place of other peoples' litter.

Just when the rubbish heaps started to odor, the couple decided they had to do something. Much of the problem was due to discarded cow and buffalo horns, which produced a foul odour and attracted hungry swarms of insects.

Chenda says: "We didn't know what we could do with them [the horns] but considering the odour started to worsen, nosotros tried to collect, wash and dry out them. At that fourth dimension, all we could recollect of is stopping the stench."

In 1998, Prasac, the microfinance establishment which started as a evolution projection funded by the Eu, offered the couple instruction on how to plough the horns into useful items similar furniture.

Sokchen loved the furniture fabricated from horns so much that he became a instructor at Prasac to pass the skills onto others.

Chenda says she and her husband never imagined their newfound hobby could become a sustainable business. Just after years of working for other people, they decided to strike out on their own.

"We chose to piece of work every bit construction workers in different provinces and even in Thailand. Afterward a while, we grew exhausted from working for others, Chenda says.

Eventually, my married man gathered the courage to make a living with his creativity, even though he knew many might not value information technology. In 2003, we started a small business organisation by making a few things and request people to help sell them for us since nosotros didn't own a shop yet."

The 38-year-old told The Post that she and her husband started with half dozen to 7 workers merely when business organization didn't option up, their staff was reduced to three.

From kiosks to a mall storefront

In 2017, Chenda set upwards a kiosk and started selling the horn-fashioned appurtenances at Wat Phnom, but she found the area to be too serenity and she wasn't able to brand enough sales.

Almost a twelvemonth later, she found a perfect identify for her store on the quaternary floor of the Sorya Middle Betoken mall in Phnom Penh.

Content image - Phnom Penh Post

From cleaning and drying to sanding and polishing, fashioning the horns takes time and patience. Hong Menea

"Information technology's been 17 years till at present, and that is a long journey for us. Many times, I asked my hubby why he connected doing what he's been doing. Couldn't he come across that it wasn't going to work out?

"He told me he did it because he loves it. He wants to keep this [horn merchandise] as a legacy for his younger generation to see. Hearing his centre, I decided to walk with him," she says.

Chenda does the marketing for the visitor while her husband focuses on fashioning the horns.

Their extensive experience in the business concern has allowed them to push their boundaries. And after assessing the market, Chenda discussed coming up with culling designs to keep upward with customers' demands.

"We learned to combine the horns with other materials such equally copper, silver and wood to come up upwards with unlike designs because you lot can't make much with solely the horns," she says.

Aside from furniture, their shop, called Somonea, sells daily necessities, Khmer instruments, jewellery, lanterns, tobacco pipes, combs, dorsum scratchers, and hairpins, amid other items.

The crafting process

Information technology takes years to main the skill of crafting the horns and several days to finish a unmarried piece.

Chenda says the near difficult role of the process is cleaning the horn.

"In cleaning the horn, we need to put in a lot of attempt, washing it inside and out with sandpaper and using a polishing motorcar at the finish. If a horn all the same has some meat attached to it, we need to boil information technology. If we don't make clean it well, the aroma will never go away.

"We practise it over and over until we can experience the shine texture. And so we accept it to dry out to stop the stench. Finally, in the shade, we choose horns with certain figures because not every horn tin can be turned into something nosotros desire," she says.

What makes each horn unique is its natural colour, which can't be replicated.

"When they [the cows] are alive, they use their horns to bump into anything that blocks them and that causes the difference in colours they have.

"Sometimes, it'due south hard when the buyers want the verbal aforementioned colour, simply we only take ane of it," Chenda says.

Content image - Phnom Penh Post

Prices vary widely for each item. For jewellery, the most expensive slice is $35. The piece of furniture tin cost up to more than $200.

Chenda says that since the couple started their business, nearly of her customers have been foreigners. But locals take started showing interest of tardily afterward she marketed her products at workshops around the metropolis.

Importance of recycling

The couple's journey from their apprehensive Prey Veng home to a storefront in the Sorya mall has been difficult.

They haven't had to invest as well much money in their enterprise since the horns are typically regarded as useless by locals. Just their road to success was paved with years of research and labour.

"Nosotros started by picking up horns, woods and roots from the neighbourhood and later we started buying [horns], but they're not expensive.

"It'southward the strength and motivation required that frazzle us daily, especially when we accept no one supporting us while some even wait down on united states.

"We've ofttimes been told past many locals that foreigners will never support us because we encourage slaughter to get the horns. I told them I don't . . . I am trying to recycle what they've been throwing away into something valuable for them and the country," Chenda says.

After many years in the business, she has learned a lot nearly the unlike benefits provided past working with discarded cow horns.

"I have this massage tool that is very good and tin be used in different means. When information technology touches our pare, it gives the states a warm temperature, facilitates blood apportionment and even burns fatty in our body.

"I have researched it and found that Singapore uses this for massages and I take seen it in Cambodian massage parlours too," she says.

Chenda says she is hoping to keep her self-evolution in many areas, and in the future, she wants to uplift those who aren't succeeding in schoolhouse by education them the skill of horn crafting.

"This might be but a horn, but the more y'all work with it, the more creative you get. Therefore, you can take this as your career and larn to use it in other means that make it possible for yous to button yourself up.

"I believe the younger generation tin can do fifty-fifty better than my hubby and I if they are willing to learn," she says.

Finally, Chenda has a message for all Cambodians: "The trash you've been throwing abroad is valuable. If you throw away only a trivial, you might not see the problem.

"But if you lot continue to throw away things, the trouble volition come dorsum right at you. It will never go abroad unless we practice something.

"I desire to prompt people to exist united and learn to be as creative as possible with the litter they throw away. It'southward our country. At the terminate of the 24-hour interval, we should be accountable for our actions and I believe it starts with each 1 of us," she says.

For more information, visit Somonea's Facebook page or contact them by telephone at 011805866/087447386.

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