Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Musalila

Last week I took our visitors on a field trip to meet the Musalila Women's Coop ladies.I was worried nobody would show up and we would have slogged through muddy fields and through a creek for nothing, but those ladies did me proud.

They were already assembled when we arrived (a first!), and had displayed their patchwork bags and about a dozen floor mats they've crocheted.

I had just showed them the basics of crocheting strips of rags using the wood hooks a guy carved for me. From that scrap of information, the Musalila ladies have carved a bunch more hooks and created rugs that would take a prize at the state fair. They took some samples into Chadiza and took orders for a bunch more.

My friends and I each bought a mat, and Elizabeth stopped by Sunday to say the group had used our money to buy (and already plant!) beans, which they'll sell in a few months. They'll use that money to buy more fabric. The men in the group are so impressed with their income that they asked the ladies to teach them something they can do to earn some, too.

Swoon.

1 comment:

Karen said...

Lisa, that's *fantastic*. How encouraging it must be to see a seed you planted grow to fruition like that -- and so quickly. Pretty cool that the men now want in on the action ; ) If you get a chance, I'd love to see pix of their products.