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Published: February 28th 2006
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Some of my Fabrics, Ironed
I ironed scraps for about three hours, and the bag weighed about 20 pounds at the airport! Veronica was determined to make a dress for me...using the fabric that Sarah had given me. I explained that Sarah had been in the place where the fabric was printed. So, Friday afternoon, we left the material, and Veronica assured me that it would be finished late Saturday afternoon, in time for me to pick it up on the way to the Embassy Party.
Saturday morning, Bill worked on his blogs, and I pressed all of the fabrics while Sarah and Nate were off to an engagement party. When they got home, they decided to come with me to Veronica's because they had discovered a framing shop near the Thousand Cups coffee house a few doors from Veronica's.
Also, they knew that there was a woman's crafts market across the street. Nate added to his spear collection; I picked up a couple of necklaces.
Well, one of the men Joelle, who sews for Veronica got really interested and
determined to make me the very best African-style dress with his machine embroidery. He wasn't working with a regular zig-zag machine. Instead, his left hand moved the fabric and his right hand turned a dial to make the zig zag.
Joelle at his sewing machine
He can really embroider with such an ordinary machine. He was DETERMINED to make me a beautiful dress! Unfortunately, for all of us, the electricity had gone out on Saturday, so the dress was no where finished when we got therel Poor Joelle couldn't stitch.
The coffee was great. The market was great. The dress wasn't finished. I started taking pictures of Joelle's incredible embroidery.
Finally, Sarah and Nate headed home to clean up, leaving me Sarah's cell...the dress was FINALLY finished about 6:45, not really enough time to get home, cleaned up and to the party.
In the meantime, we had learned that the Ethiopian Restaurant that Andrew the Marine had told us about was very near to where Joelle lives. So, we said, okay, we will pay for the taxi IF Joelle will show us the restaurant. Veronica said,
The only reason that you are paying SH10,000 is because you don't know your way around, right? So, let Joelle find the right matatu (minivan) for SH1500 and you pay for his way home.
So, after Joelle finally was able to finish the stitching, AND we finished with all of the photo taking, Joelle took us through ALL of the dozens of matatus to just the right one. As we walked, I asked Kampala Women's Craft Market
All of the crafts are purported to be made by women. We did find some interesting bark cloth. how it was working for Veronica.
Oh, it is quite good. It is like a big family. If she is unhappy, and she is, just like everyone is from time to time, she just explains the problem, and then we go on. That was a nice commentary, and certainly seemed to confirm the good vibes that we had in the shop.
We got in, the doors closed, the night darkened, and we were off. I asked Joelle about the fish design on the man's shirt next to me.
from Congo, even with the war, Congo makes the most fabrics. Then, somehow all of the passengers started visiting with us, and it turned out that of the 14 people in the van, only Bill and I were married! We all had a good time.
Then, sure enough, Joelle delivered us right to the front door of the restaurant and refused to come in with us, explaining that he eats two meals a day, and not one at night.
The Ethopian buffet was excellent and we had a good conversation with folks at the next table: an Ethiopian who works for HP and a Belgian, working with something through
Nate w/ his Maasai Spear
Nate has a very interesting collection of spears. We joked that he can't carry any home on the plane. the European Union. A very pleasant evening, then the waiter found us a safe and reliable taxi and we headed for home.
This was just enough time to pack up all of our stuff so that we would be ready for the Chimp Island trip in the morning. We had determined that IF possible, we will try to take a boat from Chimp Island directly to Entebbe instead of going back to Kampala and then to Entebbe. We are spending the night since our flight is 5 a.m. Monday morning.
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