June 14, 2008

• The Soul of Somanya

  (I want to share this letter with everyone. It's from Melody MacDuffee, a bead and crochet artist who is doing wonderful things to help better the lives of people in Ghana. Here is a photo I took of Melody at the CGOA conference in New Hampshire last year; she is on the left. I took a class on beaded crochet from her, and she was a wonderful instructor and all-around nice and generous person. She now has an online catalog of jewelry being made by orphans in Ghana, which you can view here. On the site you can read how Melody became involved with the Ghana Beadwork Project. I just ordered a necklace, which I will treasure and wear with love. Please read on....it sure made me feel so blessed to have what I have.)

  Hello Everyone,
  
  Well, I'm home...I mean here. In Ghana. But the first words I heard on landing were Bernard's, saying, "Welcome home, Manye," and it felt very right. I found myself loving the heat that penetrates to the marrow but somehow doesn't make me cranky. I kept breathing the air in deep gulps, trying to identify that something indescribable that makes it so different from ours. I received the cacaphony of traffic and hawkers and blaring rap music that would make me crazy anywhere else as a soothing balm to the spirit. Don't ask me why. It's just something about this place. The squalor that so horrified me the first time I arrived now holds a chaotic but profound charm for me. This is Africa, and I love it. I don't know why.
  
  Some of it must have to do with the miracle of Bernard himself. What an amazing young man! I'm so enjoying this chance to get to know him better, to understand what motivates him to give up so much to do this service for his community. He's one of the finest people I've ever known. I hope, and trust, that we will be lifelong friends.
  
  And the house he found...I still can't believe he managed to negotiate such a deal on a place so nice! No squalor here at all. It's spanking clean, freshly painted, secure within a walled area shared by the landlord's own home, and it even has running water...a day or two a week.  Not enough pressure to take a shower, so the bucket is back.  But I'm beginning to understand that when people here say they have a shower, it only means that they have a shower stall, which has nothing whatsoever to do with whether you can ever actually take a shower in it. But who cares. I'm used to the bucket. I've come to like it. It's a sign of home.
  
  Home has five small but adequate and immaculately clean rooms plus a kitchen, bathroom and shower room, colorfully printed curtains for privacy, a wonderful long porch where we hold our training and work sessions for the kids, two full-sized mattresses, several plastic buckets, a few pans and dishes, an electric fan, a couple of plastic tables, ten plastic chairs, a bunch of beading tools and supplies, and not much else--all for the record-breaking price of $100.00 a month. A similar organization in the next town over has two closet-sized rooms with no bathroom, no sink, no comforts at all, and they pay $75.00. But this is Bernard. He spares no effort to get things done, and he works miracles. Despite his youth (he's 26), and despite the myriad objections the landlord initially had about renting to anyone so young and "unsettled," he managed to secure this lovely place for us, in which we can now train our producers, hold work sessions and meetings, do our office work, store our supplies, pack our products for shipping, and even live.
  
  So, as you may have gathered, I'm very, very happy. The training sessions with the orphans are going extremely well. The bead makers made the unprecedented gesture of all being a full hour early for our first meeting, and all being seated in a circle, waiting for me and shouting out, "Welcome, you are welcome" when I arrived. I shook all of their hands and said their names as I did so, a fact that apparently amazed them even more than it did me--I didn't forget a one! (Those of you who know me well know what an achievement that is.) Then, once I was seated, they all insisted on getting up and filing by to shake my hand again. I was very touched. This, of course, was followed by two hours of heated arguments about the parameters of the organization and the decisions we had made since my last trip. The issue was our hiring of the orphans when most of the bead makers want to do--and get the money for--producing the items themselves. Which we all know would end up never getting done in time because they're too busy making beads. Finally, on a sudden inspiration, I settled the issue instantaneously by asking why on earth we would bother to buy beads from them now only to have to give the beads back to them later so that they can produce the jewelry. No more debate. Money now is always better than the possibility of money later. It was manipulative on my part, but it worked.
  
  I'd better go. I'm writing this from an internet cafe, so chances are good that this computer will crash soon. Our own internet hookup is lost in Africa time. It was supposed to be ready by the time I got here, but...well, this is Africa. Nothing ever, ever happens on schedule here. But we have hopes for this coming week. In the meantime, as always, my heartfelt thanks to everyone who got me here and made this project possible. It's been an experience of miracles for me. I'll keep you posted.
  
  Melody

  • 6:03 pm
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