We have accomplished a lot since we arrived. I think I said Paul assembled the loom and spinning wheel with no problem. It was nice to have the video of the assembly though, as he was able to check one part on the DVD on my laptop. Next we had a whole session of washing the wool, which was no easy feat. We had a huge pot of water going in the yard as to not use up the propane in our one burner propane stove, which is the only stove in the house. Washing the wool has about five steps and you have to be very careful not to agitate it even a little bit or it turns to felt! We learned all this from a book Schacht Spindle gave us before we left. We realized even with our open crates that the wool wasn't drying, so one day we spread it out on large pieces of cardboard in the sun.
Two days ago about six women came over plus other locals. We teased the wool --hand picked out all the dirt and mats out of the washed, dry wool--and there were a lot of jokes in Swahili about how time consuming it was. Then Lilly gave a great demonstration of how to wash the wool with Karambu translating into Swahili the multi steps. She went through one batch with them. Then we gave a demonstration on carding the wool, taking two large brushes and brushing apart the clean, teased wool. It was the first time we had done it, but we read about it in the book. The final product really did look good after that, although we are still not sure the wool that Karambu picked up is the best for this job. It has a lot of short hairs in it that we have to pick out,and it was very dirty when we started. The clean, carded wool is similar to some wool we brought from the US although slightly less soft, but we are going to need to work out a system to do this faster.
Paul gave a demonstration on spinning with tips on how to do it, although we have a long way to go before we master it.
Then Paul brought the women inside to see the loom. We were losing the days light and since there isn't great lighting in the house we had to do this fast. He has literally just finished warping the loom (putting all the strings on), which he also learned from a book. He put a simple pattern on it, and the women were thrilled to see they could actually weave something. We were lucky to have any yarn at all. The day before we left a box arrived with some yarn from a friend of my college roommate, Joan.
At the end of the day the women spoke to us in a big circle. One woman spoke in English and said how thankful they were and how much hope they had. They also all offered us a prayer in Swahili. It was a great day.
Today the women are at Karambu's house beading. Lilly will interview them and Karambu's sister will translate so we can get this on video. These women have had hard lives. They have AIDS, and their husbands died of AIDS. They have little to eat and they are raising their children. IPI sponsors some of their kids so they can go to school.
I hope that we can find a weaver to train the women. The weavers here do not want to train them because they are afraid of competition. Karambu will be talking to a Kenyan weaver in Nairobi today. Maybe she will come because Nairobi is four hours from Meru, and so she may not feel like there will be competition. The truth is... we hope to pay the women a fair market value for their goods and then sell them in the US so more looms can be built, so their fear of competition is unfounded.
I often wonder if this project will take off, especially after we leave. There is a strong faith here that "God will provide". There is also a strong interest in this project. I do hope an experienced US weaver will come and give them advanced training. Karambu and I have been talking about giving a stipend to a US weaver to pay for half her airfare with the idea that she would at least donate three weeks of daily training. If you have interest, please e-mail me at sglairon@comcast.net. We need to raise more funds for this, but IPI may be able to help some, I am not sure yet.
Yesterday we took a day off and hiked up to the first station on Mt . Kenya at Mt Kenya National Park. A very steep 18km hike round trip. We saw zebras, baboons, and a kind of deer we couldn't identify. We saw lots of elephants, which everyone at the park said was so lucky as you can hike there for a year and not see elephants! The hike was very nice and it was cold at that first station... probably high 40s so we put on our hats and fleece jackets. I wished we could have planned to do the peak, I didn't realize there were huts there you could sleep in... maybe on another trip to Kenya. Everything here is so formal though. You have to hire guides and porters and to do an overnight gets quite expensive. Even yesterday we were required to hire a guide who wasn't much of a guide, but he did carry the one big pack we had which was very nice. We had hoped to visit a small town with a weaver's guild after the hike, but the battery went dead on the van and it took a while to find so
meone at the park with jumper cables. This time it was an English woman in a Land Cruiser who lives in Kenya. I really don't know what we would have done if she hadn't arrived as this national park does not get the foot traffic like we do in the US.
We have been eating a lot of the local food prepared at the house. Often we combine American-Kenyan, with Kenyan prepared vegetables and rice, and our meat mixed with taco or chili seasonings. It's kind of funny. Cooking is difficult as we don't have a refrigerator and the stove is a simple one burner propane stove, but we're managing. There is a Nakumat Supermarket here that will rival any King Soopers, so it's nice to go shopping there.
We also were able to see elephants another time, this time close to Meru. There is an electric fence to keep them from leaving the forest although it never seems to be on. You always see kids climbing it.
OK that's all for now. We're hoping to do a short safari and see the migration of the Wildebeest . We'll also be visiting Sister Luise's compound, although she won't be there. And we hope to visit the big market in Nairobi.
Thanks for all your donations and good wishes. They keep us going. This project is much more complicated then we ever dreamed!
Susan
Friday, June 27, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment