Country Article / Postcards

Can You Turn a Sorpresa From El Salvador Into a Multimillion-dollar Business?

Date: 07/11/2007

Learn more about El Salvador in International Living Postcards--your daily escape

Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Ilobasco, El Salvador

I was driving through the hills just north of San Salvador, enjoying El Salvador's great highway system, when I noticed a sign indicating the turnoff for the village of Ilobasco [ee loh BAHS ko]. I didn't have a strict itinerary to keep, so I took the exit…and discovered a pleasant town of 23,000, which was a center for the production of ceramics as far back as pre-Columbian times, primarily due to the quality of the clay in the area. Today, Ilobasco is the village for the most renowned craft item in El Salvador--the sorpresa, meaning "surprise."

As far as I know, the sorpresa is unique to El Salvador.

In one small adobe building, I noticed a young lady hunched over a work table in the back of the room, her complete concentration focused on the tip of her paintbrush as she finished another sorpresa for her display case out front.

The sorpresa is a tiny grouping of figures--a scene--hidden in a small oval about the size of an egg. The original sorpresas were made to resemble an egg (and many still do) but today, they can also be made to look like a small papaya, a miniature apple, or a tiny onion. When you open it by lifting the top, you'll see the scene within: hence the "surprise."

The figures inside the sorpresa are still made of clay, and each one is formed in a tiny mold and then fired in an oven before being painted.

The simplest sorpresas are depictions of scenes from rural life, such as a woman making pottery, washing clothes, or weaving hats. But they can also be combined and displayed together to show an entire process, such as the planting and harvesting of corn--one sorpresa might show the sowing of the crop, while another shows the harvest, one for the grinding, and one for baking. These sets are known as procesos, while cuadros can portray an entire town at work, with hundreds of figures in a large glass display case.

Today, sorpresas can be seen throughout El Salvador, but a woman named Dominga Herrera, the daughter of ceramic doll makers, created the original art form right here in Ilobasco. Her tiny and intricately-painted figures made her famous in her day (she lived until 1982) and have since become an important craft industry for about 80 families in Ilobasco, as well as for artisans in the rest of the country.

Ilobasco has an attractive and well-treed town square, which serves as its social center. There are plenty of craft shops in town, selling everything from ceramic masks to large pots, to, of course, sorpresas. Aside from some of the painting, most of the sorpresas that you'll find in Ilobasco are not made in the shops where they're sold, but in workshops tucked away on the outskirts, such as the one I went to at Kilometer 34 (a marker on the road) about a half-mile south of town.

If you want to head straight for the craft shops, take the right fork at Kilometer 34 as you're driving into Ilobasco. If you come on Saturday (market day) be prepared to find some of the roads in town closed--with lots of traffic on the open ones.

You can learn about (and buy) sorpresas in San Salvador, too, at the Museo de Arte Popular (Popular Art Museum), located on Av. San Jose 125. They also display some impressive procesos and cuadros.

An original sorpresa will cost you around $2.50 at the museum in San Salvador, and $1.25 if you buy it in Illobasco. Larger and more intricate ones will go for more, but are still inexpensive.

Lee Harrison
Roving Latin America Editor, International Living

Editor's note: Did you notice the 100% mark-up on sorpresas between Illobasco and San Salvador? Imagine what you could sell one of these little figures for in your home town…now multiply that by 100. That's exactly how a successful import-export business starts--noticing something unique or special while on vacation…and then saying to yourself, "People would pay more for that back home." It's easier and cheaper than you might think. Start small. Take an extra suitcase with you on your next trip. Fill it, as you travel, with trinkets--sorpresas, for example. If you like it, others from wherever you hail likely will, too. And they'll be willing to pay a premium for having the treasure hand-delivered. No kidding…it can be as simple as that.

You can learn more in How to Start Your Own Import-Export Business, the most comprehensive course we know about carving out your own successful niche in this $148 billion industry (and that's just in the U.S.). Plus, you get 10 weeks of online instruction showing you how to put it all into action. During IL's Summer Sizzler Sale, How to Start Your Own Import-Export Business is available for 27% off: click here.