Then no gas .. so no coffee...
ooh! Monday, Monday... 'at least we have electricity!' says Christianne. Yes, it is good to get things into perspective... and i am having a bit of cornflakes with my heavenly mango!! Life is good.
Shoko and i are riding our bikes in... i know what i am in for... a slight uphill allll the waaay... and a wonky wheel ..i keep telling myself people carry weights to make their exercise harder, i have a wonky wheel, be grateful... it makes it harder...
But the scenery is great... i need one of those James Bond cameras where i blink my eye and the tiny camera implanted in my sunglasses takes a picture...
... but since i don't have one, i will just have to remember them in my head. One image that was way cool: 5 women swaying in single file down the road with these gigantic silver pots on their head filled with something liquid i am sure... i was coming up behind them and it was beautiful to see... hips synchronized, pots totally steady. The other image was: suddenly up popped this soapy head from behind a wall with hands vigorously scrubbing... it was an outdoor shower!!! ... and, of course, the flocks of schoolgirls all smartly dressed in their uniforms their hair cropped short which only emphasizes their beauty...
... and there was me...pufff! puff! aahh! there is the office just UP there... not far to go...
.. getting off the bike I promise myself i won't be such an idiot and do that again...
... needless to say i dripped and melted for quite awhile. But i got distracted quite quickly as it was a very busy day!
i filled my phone... wow! first time i have done that... and quite easy... so my phone is again full of gas and ready to go!
i got out some money to put in the Micro-financing Project .. i am very excited about that. We will write out a contract saying i can withdraw my money when i need it... better than putting it in the bank these days! And meanwhile the money will help some really worthwhile people.
Also, just before Christmas i was telling my hairdresser (wonderful Mark at Au Premier in NDG... the best!!) that i was going to volunteer in Ghana working with woman doing Batik and Beading. He told me about a store he had heard a client had started that was Fair Trade and sounded really good..
So i went to check it out.... Pure Art has a store at 5128 Sherbrooke St West (near Grey) .. This is the second store Brigitte McKinnon has opened, the first one being in her town, Hudson. The story of their beginning can be found on their website http://www.pureart.ca . It is very inspiring!!
I loved the store ... it was beautifully laid out and the products are really beautiful... i found a lot of wonderful Christmas presents here. The young ladies looking after the store were delightful and i got to talking to them .... and told them my story and they immediately said i should contact the owner if the crafts nice.. (how refreshing!)
So when i arrived in Ho and saw the crafts the women were making i knew instantly that i would be proud to bring them back to Canada... so i contacted Brigitte.
She wrote me an enthusiastic email back ... so we are going to connect when i get back... and today i had a lot of fun putting in an order to Lady Volta .... so perhaps you will be able to buy these crafts at Pure Art in Montreal .... keep tuned in here!!!
And i got a start on working on an original design for a funkyFrog batik which is quite ixciting.. I hope to follow the making of this batik from start to finish... and hopefully to get some bags made so when i sell the African beads they will be shipped off in real African batik bags!! ... i am starting to feel like the Bead Lady... planning and plotting!
I had a short visit with Dela and we planned our next sortie to the bead market this Thursday... Hopefully this will be Dday or ... i should say Bday ... when i really do some wheeling and dealing!
I have been swotting (that's the influence of my fellow volunteer from the Empire...) up on beads on the internet ... amazing what you can learn there!! Also i have made myself a more detailed exchange list for switching ghana cedis to american dollars ... i am determined to look like i know what i am doing... after all that is half the battle won, right?
And the last thing i did was participate in the first staff meeting of Beads and Batik for this year. Everything is presented to the staff... how much they made last year, how much this is up from the year before, what they would like to see this year... It was very interesting. It seems to be an organization that is moving from struggling just to survive to being quite viable and actually making a little profit...
Then it was back on the bike and sailing home... in this direction it is almost downhill alll the way!
I stopped on the way to take a picture of one of the termite castles ... i find them so enthralling.. when you think that a tiny creature hauled all this earth all the way up, up, up ... and the castles are so ethereal and beautiful ... as Shoko says, 'Natural art'
We had banana cake for desert... i had a piece and a half... after all, i deserved it after all my exercise today!!
.... oooh! and did i mention? ... the water is back in full force! i washed my hair and it felt wonderful!!
...we did lose the electricity for a bit but hey! the ipad is wireless and i kept blogging!!
