BACK IN NAMIBIA

I was in the USA for almost 6 months recently, helping with a new grand baby, enjoying the holiday season with children and grand children , and doing shows to support and promote the Namibian women in our project. 

Thanks to many of you, who purchased beads and jewelry, we were able to raise over $10,000 USA dollars to keep our project solvent!  There was a time when we could make enough sales in Namibia alone, but most of our sales in country are to tourists, and fewer and fewer tourists are coming to Namibia these days. We sell in country, only about 1/3 as much now, as we did in the pre-2011 days.

My beautiful model here is Asteria Shilongo. She is facilities manager at our community training center. She is as beautiful inside as out!

When I first realized I would be training Namibian women in hand craft, I must have thought there were 20 of me. I had so many ideas! And I brought tons of supplies to Namibia for all those hundreds of ideas. Back in 2003 and for a few years after, we were allowed two 70 lb. bags of luggage.
Weren't those the days!

Now that both my husband an I are in our 60's, we are looking at a bit slower pace and to spending more time in the USA with our grandkids, while still promoting the hand work of Namibian women.

 We are thinking 9 months in the USA and only 3 months per year in Namibia.( For  the past 13 years it has usually been 9 months in Namibia and 3 in the USA).

All that to say, I recently began going through all those supplies I brought years ago, and passing them on to other organizations who could put them to good use.

When I came to the ribbon box though, I had a hard time giving up all my never used plans for the ribbon.  I also still have lots of fabric I had thought to use for making hand bags.  My most dear friend here has just been diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer, so I have been thinking head covers anyway. Over the weekend head bands just kept pouring out of my little garage work room.

Here's one with a crocheted band and silk ribbon flower

I got my crochet patterns here. I love her patterns !

Head bands are such instant gratification! A new one can be whipped out in a little over an hour. And they will be much less complicated to teach than hand bags.

Now the question is..........Is there a market?  Please give me some feed back.  Do you like wide or narrow? Is there a market?

I am also working on some children and baby sizes.

Here's the week end stash

FIVE RAND SQUATTER'S CAMP- a tour

The community of Five Rand got it's name when the farmer who owned the land charged people five rand ( U.S. 50 cents) a month to live there and use his water. (At the time Namibia was part of South Africa)

The land now belongs to the city of Okahandja, and plots can be purchased for $700 to $900 U.S. dollars. Most people however never achieve ownership and just set up their tin home on whatever plot is available.

There are a handful of cement block houses in the camp. I was curious why this one was empty, and was told that it is haunted by a dead child crying in the walls.

Five Rand is not just a place where people have their homes, but there are also many business, churches, a few preschools, and one primary school .

Here is a very nice preschool ( here we say kindergarden) and it doubles as a church on Sunday. I think they used pallets for the wood part.

Here's another church

Butcher

Here's hubby at the take out.

The most frequent business in the camp unfortunately, is that of having a bar as part of your home (called a shebeen)

The reason this is such a problem, is that many, many of the camps residents drink away their small pay checks within the first few days of getting them, and their children go hungry.They sometimes even give children alcohol because it makes them stop crying.  

 There are often bar fights, and I especially pity the children who have this going on right in their home.

  Each bar tries to get customers by playing  louder and louder music and so it's a constant "battle of the bands" especially in the evenings when kids are needing to do homework.
One reason we built the community/youth center is so kids will have a safe place to be, and where they can participate in sports, games, and learning as an alternative to following in their parents foot steps of drinking as the only form of entertainment.
TO BE CONTINUED.......

Artisan profile: Lucia #1

Meet Lucia #1 (so called because we also have Lucia #2)

Lucia says: "I am 51 and the single mother of 10 children. Six boys and four girls. I and my family are really dependent of Work of our Hands and the money I make from making jewelry. I am not educated so I can only get domestic work sometimes. I use the money from Work Of Our Hands to buy food and pay for school fees for my children. My dream is to see my children graduate from college. One son is in his second year of college and another has been admitted this year. I also hope to have a small business at the open market one day."

Typical homes in Five rand camp

Lucia lives in " Five Rand" Squatter's camp so named because years ago the farmer charged 5$ South African Rand to stay a month in the camp. ( about 75 cents USA ). Now the camp property is owned by the city of Okahandja.  Residents can buy their plot for about $1,000 US $ but most do not. This means that the city can legally take away their home at any time ( or move them off the plot at least) The city has already sold some land to a developer but has not yet moved any residents. Should be interesting when it happens.

This is how residents of Five Rand camp get their water. They purchase a card from the city (looks like a credit card) and put money on the card. When the card is pushed in a slot on the grey box, water comes out the hose pipe. Then they just have to carry it home.

WORMS YUMMY !

TSVANGIRAYI MUKWAZHI/AP

MOPANE WORMS (actually caterpillar of the emperor moth) are a delicacy all over southern Africa. They hatch after the summer rains, and then everyone runs to the bush to get their share.  Around that time of year I always know when the hatching has begun, because no one comes to
 work ! 
The poor are especially happy for this free food as it has 3 times the protein of beef.

The Mopanes I tasted had been spiced with chili and were not bad at all. The only problem I had was getting past the look of them.  In the future I plan to close my eyes first.
See more in this great article: http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/eats/zimbabwe-favorite-snack-mopane-worms-article-
1.1247669

AND NOW FOR THE WINNER OF THE DRAWING:  Lisa    http://carefreejewelrybylisa.blogspot.com/

Thank you everyone for your comments, and by the way, I am working on an Etsy site. Best wishes to all

Related articles

• Worms: A Zimbabwe snack, from tree to dinner table

GIVE AWAY & HOW WE GOT STARTED

Hibiscus brooch 

I am not the best blogger, It's like dieting, I have good intentions, but then life takes over ! So, just to see if anybody is actually out there, I am having a give away. ( Not a subscriber? become a new  subscriber and your name goes in the "hat" twice.)

To be eligible, either ask a question pertaining to the video, or tell me what you would like to read about in the future. For example: More about African life, more about the artisans, more tutorials, more about our products ? etc.

At the end of January 2013 I will draw the winner.

The link below is a video about how I got to Africa and how Work Of Our Hands got started.

Merry Christmas to all ! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSyDiiMcIbw#

FIRING OUR CERAMIC BEADS

Whenever I read a post about someone starting the craft or business of ceramic bead making, I wonder if they know what they are getting into.  I certainly didn't ! It's been about 4 years now, and the things I have learned could fill a book. So many failures and troubles. The learning curve is steep ! Still it's those days when I open the kiln to a perfect firing , well almost perfect is more common :) Those days keep me going.

I wrote a blog for Beads of Clay  about how we manage here in Africa without all the fancy tools and specialty equipment available in the USA. andsome of the special challenges we face here. http://www.blog.beadsofclay.org/2012/06/in-africa-we-make-plan.html check it out.

AFRICAN COLOR WILD AND FREE

Ahh color . I have always loved it, and thought I was pretty liberated in using it; until I went to live in Africa that is...

African wax prints

In Africa there are no color rules, no color police; every color goes with every other color.  If you like it, it goes !

There is a newer housing development in our town and everyone calls it Smarties.

 Purple, pink, orange, lime green, you name it and there is a house painted that color.

Home owners association? What's that?

 Bo-Kaap Cape Town

I recently come across this great explanation for the source of the African color palette.

(see link below)

I call the first palette our desert palette. 

We are all comfortable with this palette I think.

The African color palette derives from two sources. The first is traditional and utilizes earth pigments and natural dyes. This palette is full of ochres, browns, rusts, burgundies, blacks and the whites of raw, untreated cotton cloth and other natural fibers. This is what I call the “natural” African color set.

When synthetic dyes were introduced to Africa a new range of colors appeared. The cloth dyers had not much experience with dyes, so they used each one on its own and at full strength. The result was a set of brilliant, strong reds, rich full blues, emerald greens, and golden yellows, colors never before seen. These form the “dyed” African color set.

quilt/http://www.denacrain.com/blog/tutorials/african-quilt/ 

Now that's the wild and free palette !

Sometimes I have to caution our artisans, that Westerners are not as liberated in color use as Africans, and selling wild color combinations is often hard to do.

Myself ? 

I have to say, that how I think about color, and what colors "go together" has greatly expanded since living in Namibia, but I still have a very long ways to go before being truly FREE .

Fashion

and more fashion

Christie Brown fashion design

hand painted candles  

Even in Nature African colors can be intense

• http://theroadforks.com/photography/lilac_breasted_roller_weekly_photo

Hildegard's house

Hildegard, we are so proud of you for saving your money and using it to build . Some of you remember earlier posts showing her tin shack, and house getting started. Now it's almost finished !http://workofourhands.blogspot.com/2007/09/making-difference.html

Tastes like chicken !

Image via Wikipedia

I was thinking, now why are the ladies not coming to work? They  are just back from Christmas holidays, and they know I'm anxious for them to get a lot finished before I go state side next month. Then I remembered...It's mopane worm season !    Free food,  just for the picking, and it tastes just like  chicken, ...........well................the one I ate didn't really taste like much at all. But I'll bet with some butter and garlic I could create escargot ala Africa !

Lucia

Meet Lucia , one  of our  ceramic bead artisans.  Lucia is an orphan, yet persisted in completing her grade 12 a few years ago. Quite an accomplishment in Namibia where after grade 10 many students do not pass the exams to continue school.  Because Lucia could not pay her exam fees, she still does not have her grade 12 certificate. This has hindered her from quite a few opportunities so far, but she just learned that orphans can get a waver on the no pay, no certificate, rule.

Lucia is very smart, and I hope to see her running the ceramic bead operation in a few years time.