Snapshots of life in Kita

Found these kids bathing at the top of a small waterfall from the recent rains.

Inside of a bus on the way from Kita to Manatali. Keep in mind this is one of the nicest buses I've ever ridden in Mali. Usually they're so bumpy, hot as hell, stinky, with dirty curtains and broken seats. This one was remarkably better and pleasant.

One of my favorite past times in Kita - going shopping in the "dead Toubab" piles. This is my buddy, Michelle, as we were shopping. These clothes are somehow sold or donated to Mali from America or European countries (mostly). And it's a very cheap way for Malians to have clothing. They often wear their clothes to the point of ruin, out of need. The average cost of a shirt is probably 250 CFAs, or 50 cents American. 

"Dead Toubab" piles

You'll also find Malians wearing a lot of shirts in English that they don't understand. This one hangs right up front in the "Dead Toubab" section of the Kita market. I've seen more boobies in Mali than in my whole life. Breastfeeding left and right, women walking around without shirts (esp old women) or braless women with baggy clothes on. Boobs are everywhere here!

Barack Obama is also everywhere. Everyone wears shirts with his face or name. He's on backpacks, wallets, belts, clothes, stickers, restaurants, barber shops, cabs, tea boxes, mayonnaise jars, ball caps, suitcases, buildings, etc. He's everywhere.

View of Kita from a hill on the way to the mountain

View of the storm during a hike to Kita's mountain. It's rainy season, and it's been raining almost every day. This sky is an everyday occurrence here. 

The old, yellow former gas jug is what Malians use for transporting drinking water, well water, and so many other liquids. 

This is the first time I hiked the Kita mountain - and we stopped through and took snapshots of Kita. There is a lot of graffiti in Mali. This "Lil Wene" is no exception. 

This looks like French, but you'll also find graffiti in English or Spanish. It's always very random - such as "California boyz" etc

You see the crowds of farm animals. They're everywhere - in the roads, in your backyard, on the Kita mountain. In the background is also a lady carrying something on her head - another thing that's everywhere here. Women don't carry things with their hands here. 

Kita mountain

Just an old, chipping, worn out building. 

Near the train tracks. There's a train that runs through the west side of Mali, and it runs through Kita. Near the mountain. 

Most of the butikis paint pictures of the services they offer. This salon is no different. Oftentimes for salons, you'll see pictures of Barack Obama painted on the building. Pictures are vital for Malians for marketing - because most Malians can't read. 

This billboard encourages them to get AIDS tests. It says they're available, free, voluntary and confidential. This is very important here in Mali - especially because of the lack of condom usage here. Oftentimes, Malians think condoms are taboo or they don't use them because of superstition. It's very difficult for women to insist on condom usage because their partners may think they're sexually active or that there's something wrong with them. Among other reasons. Although AIDS testing is very important, Mali has one of the lowest rates of AIDS infections in Africa, at about 2%. 

In this blog I've mentioned the shacks. That they're held together by whatever materials Malians can easily and cheaply get their hands on...here is a prime example. 

This is a nyegen with graffiti.

KU represents, even here in Mali! Rock Chalk Jayhawks! Ps this is the 4th KU shirt I've found. KState - 0. Mizzou - 0.  

PICS - We teach how to fish, not to eat.

There has been a lot going on lately: Hunger Awareness Week, my "chat tour" and stepping forward into a new place in my Peace Corps service.

Hunger Awareness Week is going decently well. It is challenging to eat enough healthy food on $1 a day, but it's been enlightening (more to come on that in another post). Tomorrow, I go to my women's sewing school to meet the new class of students and get a stronger picture into the type of work I'll be doing there, as their business teacher.

Sleepin' on the job...   :)

There are a ton of things going on in my Peace Corps service as well. I am hitting a new phase in my service where I can sorta speak the language, and I'm feeling comfortable and accepted in my village.

To learning new things about myself, Mali and the world. (This pic is of me the last time I went hiking on the Kita mountain)

Feeling accepted and integrated
I've been in Mali long enough to itch to start working, but I am still new to Kita, and I don't feel ready to start working yet. During PST, I was voted "Most Intense Greeter." So, to no surprise, I greet so many people every day that sometimes I duck out and take different paths to work so I don't have to greet for literally almost an hour. I can't walk down a single street on my way to the market or work, without at least 15 people yelling out my name, greeting and wanting to chat:

"Hey Ramata!!!! How are you?? How's your family? How's your extended family? Did you sleep in peace? It's been a long time (even if I saw them yesterday)! Where have you been? Are you going to come chat with us later? Come drink tea! Here, sit down. Let's chat. Let's joke. Oh! Your last name is Coulibaly! Coulibaly is bad!! Coulibaly eats beans! Coulibaly sleeps in the nyegen! Haha You said I speak donkey! Oh my god! That's so funny! You're leaving? Already??! Oh, sit down, let's chat some more. Ok, you're leaving. Come back later and let's chat and drink tea. Ok! Goodbye! See you later! Greet them for us! Bye!"

That's every conversation when I stop to greet. Multiply that by 15 people and you understand why it takes so long to walk to work! It's great because I am getting integrated...but it can be exhausting.

Feeling integrated gives me a sense of accomplishment here, and it will drastically help me in the long-run. The more time I spend with the right people... chatting, drinking tea, wandering around, greeting and building relationships (my only responsibility for my first few months here)... the more successful I will be in the future.

In America, we are all about time, time, time (aka money). We hardly have time to say "Hello." We don't stop to greet all of our co-workers, like you do here. And when we do spend time building relationships, there's usually a motive. But, here, people just build relationships because that's the most valuable thing they have.

This is my women's coop president, Sabou, and me on Seli fitini, or the end of Ramadan. Seli fitini is one of the biggest and most important days of the year, in which they break the month-long fasting of Ramadan and eat some good food! (especially meat). What's really important - is that they share their food, give blessings asking for long lives and forgive each other, of everything, for that day.

Entering the next phase
I am at a place where I can finally, finally understand what the hell people are saying. I've been here for almost eight months. Imagine not understanding anything around you for almost a year! Listening and speaking in a language you barely know, all day, struggling to understand...is exhausting. But, my hard work and relentless studying are paying off, and my Bambara skills are improving.

Now that I can finally understand more of what people are saying, and I can communicate better - I am ready to start small projects. I mean, small and simple projects - such as formations on hand washing, connecting people together or basic English classes.

A month ago, I wouldn't have thought I might feel comfortable starting even tiny projects now. That's a thing in PC - you never know. This whole experience is a roller coaster. You don't know what is going to work, what isn't. One day you'll feel like a wreck, and the next, everything works. One day you understand and speak the language really well, and the next day... people laugh and tell you you can't speak. It's just a roller coaster in general.

The Peace Corps is a very unique organization
I wouldn't take the roller coaster back for anything. It makes Peace Corps exactly the special and unique organization that it is. You get the highs...with the lows. Peace Corps is not an NGO that comes into a country and pays for huge projects. Peace Corps doesn't build expensive water systems, schools, machines. Peace Corps doesn't hand out gift boxes for Christmas or sums of money to poor communities. Peace Corps doesn't build buildings, we don't give people things, we don't throw money at problems.

As I explained to an old woman today who asked me to give her money:

"I am a Peace Corps volunteer. The Peace Corps doesn't give money to people. Because - soon - that money will be all gone, and the person is left with nothing. They can't work, they can't do anything. Instead, we help people work. We work together. We study our villages, its people, the culture, the language and the needs here. When we learn what our village needs, we teach people skills so that they can improve their villages themselves. So that they can work themselves. We teach people how to fish, but we don't teach them how to eat."

We teach people how to fish, but we don't teach them how to eat.

The PC is unique because we don't dump money on these extremely poor, developing, low capacity, unorganized countries. Instead, we go grassroots - living in small, isolated, disconnected, rural villages (most of us, at least here in Mali).

We learn the local language. It would be more helpful for us to learn French because French is useful outside of Mali. And the educated, science, education and business people speak French. Instead, we learn the real language the average person speaks.

It illustrates our commitment to understanding the community and living at Malians' level. Speaking in the local language allows us to reach the people who need our help the most (because the women, rural populations and the uneducated usually don't speak French).

In addition, the Peace Corps pays us very modest salaries. Peace Corps gives us these salaries so that we don't live extravagantly, so that we live at the level of the people we serve (we're still earning a lot more than most Malians, but it's very minimal compared to salaries for other aid groups). A lot of NGO's employees here get paid an American salary, seriously making more money than they could ever spend.

She works at Si Nafa and braids hair for a living. It's actually a somewhat "lucrative" career for  a Malian woman. She said that per customer, she might make between 100 CFAs to 5,000 CFAs (for big events, such as Seli fitini, for ex). PC really focuses on us trying to understand the economics and cultural forces at play in our host countries.

I found this guy living in an abandoned factory when I went bike riding one day. His bed is a  wooden log bed. His stove is a small fire, kept alive by these sticks. His shelter is this old factory. And his water comes from an old gasoline bucket. He was an incredibly nice guy. To a little more understanding...

This is my "brother," as we say here. We share the same last name, so that automatically makes them your brother or sister.

The Peace Corps is special because its approach is centered on our intimate knowledge of the people, culture and communities we serve. I've been here eight months and I haven't technically started working yet. We spend at least the first three months with only one goal: delving deep into the culture and habits of our communities to know their needs.

Nothing is more important than getting to know the real needs of my community first. Oftentimes, organizations skip into countries such as Mali, see they need something, and then dump their solution on the people, without knowing anything about the people, culture or needs first. The people aren't taught skills, how to sustain what they've been given, how to fix the problem at hand...instead, oftentimes, they're just given a temporary fix..and it's usually expensive and impossible for the average person to acquire themselves. So, they become dependent on that aid.

The solutions dumped on these poor countries are not catered to the way of life and customs of those countries. What's the point of building someone a pump when no one is taught to use it or fix it? What's the point of building a school in a country with no capacity for upkeep, no teachers to hire, no money for its bills and no way to run it? What's the point of doing a training on making soap when the people can't acquire or afford  the ingredients? What's the point of giving a community a $30,000 garden planted during the wrong season with the incompatible crops, for an insane cost, that ended up dying right away? (that actually happened here)

We take a "Do no harm" approach...a very slow one, indeed, but, I believe, the right approach. When we really understand the culture, the people, the seasons, the economy, the spending habits, the challenges, how people react...then we can teach them skills that they can sustain...on their own. We can help them acquire what they really need and then build from there.

Places such as Mali don't move fast. They creeeeep. They are attached to the way they do things and they don't want to change. And when you have something as magnificent as another's culture...you want to be very careful to preserve that culture while just helping improve the quality of life there.

Projects?
So far, I have started a radio show with another volunteer and I've connected a few people with networking opportunities.

My radio show is with another volunteer every Wednesday. Our show is from 4:00-5:00 P.M. and it's LIVE! We are allowed to discuss any topic we choose and basically do whatever we want.

Like everything in Mali, we are going to ease ourselves into it, establish relationships with our listeners and choose our topics based on what our listeners' needs are. Tomorrow's show will entail American and Malian story-telling, greetings, introducing ourselves and explaining the role of the Peace Corps.

Also, I've connected a few people through networking opportunities. I just completed the shea business boot camp at Tubaniso, so I shared everything I learned with my service, Si Nafa. I told them what I learned about high quality shea (because Malian shea has a bad reputation for being low quality). I showed them shea from Bamako (again, idea exchange is key). And I explained the new uses I found for shea (skin smoother, soothes burnt or aging skin, good for entire body, for colds, coughs, when it's cold, etc etc) and gave them the contact information for other shea producers in Mali.

The exchange of ideas here is very valuable. Because the Malian education system is so poor and focused on memorization, they don't learn the skill/value of thinking outside the box, creativity, or individual expression. Emphasizing creativity is important because Malians will do things exactly how they've seen it in the past. They will make their products exactly like their neighbor, and they won't expand into new opportunities.

Chillin' and chattin' with the kids at my service, promoting creativity and the importance of art and individual expression. (With the crayons Joyce sent me...thank you!)

Additionally, I've noticed Si Nafa is physically separated by the compound's gate upon entering. It's in a great location - right inside the daily market - but it's complicated to find the actual store. Most people sell in the middle of the market, right there where everyone walks. Unless you physically walk up a small hill, into the compound, past the gate and the guys chatting, and under the hangar, you won't find Si Nafa's products.

Fortunately for us, they (rare to Malian nature) acted proactively and began building a storefront to battle this challenge. We're going to be working on radio ads and other promotions and advertising in the coming months. Excited!

I think it would be very valuable for them to have a physical presence in the market, in boutiques, in stores, in Alimentations (upscale butikis w/more options and usually more expensive products), in places with more foot traffic. Basically, I want them everywhere. I want their shea everywhere it can possibly be. But, I'm putting the brakes on myself and approaching this very slowly, so I know I'm making the right moves for the situation at hand.

Looking at pictures with the people at Si Nafa

So, I talked to my service about trying to sell their shea butter, soap and Baobab candy to the local Alimentation. I talked to the owner of the Alimentation, and he said to show him the stuff and maybe they can work together. So, I showed him their products and let him try them. But, I was very careful not to "sell" the product FOR my service - because that's not sustainable.

If I sell it for them, they're not learning those skills themselves. So, first, I just made sure he was actually interested, and I didn't grossly misunderstand (which happens often, when you barely speak the language). Our next step is for someone from my service to talk to him and hopefully they'll agree on things/prices themselves. That way, all I did was just connect people. I brought my American ideas of networking to Mali.

And that is the kind of thing Peace Corps volunteers do.

Working with kids to promote artistic expression and thinking outside the box through drawing and coloring.

My other networking connection was with the new restaurant in town. They have a huge murual of an ice cream cone painted on the front of their restaurant. So, for months, we asked them when the ice cream was coming. Almost two months later, the restaurant finally got "ice cream." And I add it in quotes because it is the weirdest ice cream I've ever had!

It tastes very thick and heavy and it's not that cold :-( Granted, I'm in Mali, and basically everything is poorer quality than American products, but I can offer ideas on how to improve it so that the owner can sell more, and turn a higher profit (if he's doing accounting and actually making a profit at all).

I gave that feedback to the owner after Kita volunteers all confirmed the taste was strange. I called my friend in Bamako, who went to a soft serve ice cream place for me, and she gave me the Bamako store's name and number. I gave it to the guy and described that this guy's ice cream tasted good, Toubabs like it and it would be an enriching way for him to improve his product. The idea of networking can be really powerful here. So, hopefully this guy will figure it out improve the ice cream.

Excited about
I'm very excited about a few things: Cold season coming up, finding a big host family, my "chat tour" and feeling comfortable in my site.

The Rainy season is almost over, thank Goddess. Rainy season, as I wrote in my blog entitled "The Presence of The Rain," has been treacherous. It's been raining, downpouring, almost every day here in Kita. You can't leave your house and the dirt roads get disgusting. They turn into nyegen run-off rivers you have no choice but to walk through. Not only do you have to walk through other peoples' shit and pee, but you risk the chance of getting an infection (Schisto) from walking through peoples' shit. So...I'm very happy for the Cold season that's coming!

Here in the world's furnace, it's always hot. I mean, HOT. During hot season, it wasn't uncommon to experience 120+ degree heat every single day and night. You can't sleep. You can't walk around. You can't do anything because you're HOT and drenched at all times. During Rainy season, the roads turn into rivers and shit pools and you get trapped in the place you were when it started raining. But, for Cold Season, the weather drops to the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s...and it gets really nice (that's what I hear at least). So, as you can tell, I'm pumped for a season without monsoons or heat exhaustion.

Also, I found a missing piece in Kita for which I've been yearning to find. It's a big host family. My former site had me living with a huge host family, with 20 people with me at all times. I felt fulfilled because I had a direct impact on their lives. When I would wash my hands with soap, brush my teeth in public, or study Bambara, I was making an impact, showing them that these are habits that improve lives.

Here, my host family consists of two people who are always gone. I love them, but it's just not the same. So, finally, I found a huge host family I really like. It's my friend, Fili's family. Fili has been working with vols for years now. I sit with her and chat while she sells things in the market.

On Friday, I went to her house with her, met her huge family (with tons of other families all living in the same compound), and ended up eating with them and then playing soccer with a deflated, dirty soccer ball with about 15 little kids. It gave me that sense of belonging and fulfilment I've been searching for since I left my former site.

Lastly, I'm going on a "chat tour." My "chat tour" entails me stopping to chat with random people with whom I don't normally chat. For months, I've been promising dozens and dozens of people I'll sit and chat with them, and I haven't. So, as of last week, one of my goals is to get a lot of real chatting time in. It's all about the relationships here.

This is Younousa, Sabou's son, and me, after we spent the day making bogolan (mud-dyed fabric) and coloring.

It's all about the chatting.

Peace, adventures and mohawks!

PS - More details to come on Hunger Awareness Week. It's been...hard!

Blogging about Hunger Awareness Week

This week, Peace Corps volunteers across Mali are participating in an initiative to bring understanding and awareness to the reality an estimated 1.1 billion people, or 1 out of every 5 people, face every day...hunger and starvation. 

People who live off of less than $1 a day are considered living in extreme poverty. There are more than 2 billion children in the world...and more than one billion of them live in poverty. One out of every 2 children are living in poverty in the world...

I ask you to think back to a day when you were in class/at work and you were hungry, sweating, thirsty, crashing, tired or hadn't had enough nutrients in your diet that day. Did you perform well that day? Would you say your concentration and focus were stunted? Up to 75% of Malians battle this problem every single day. 


Right now, between 50% to 75% of Mali's population are living off of less than $1 a day.


This week is Hunger Awareness Week within the Peace Corps, and September is Hunger Action Month. For our Hunger Awareness Week initiative, Peace Corps is asking its volunteers and their friends and family at home to live off of $1 a day. We realize that it's much easier to live off of $1 a day in Mali than America, so those outside of Mali are asked to live within $5-$10 a day.I suggest more like $5 a day to actually feel the effects of the challenge ($1 a day here is hard). Hunger Awareness Week should last an entire week. More info: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=190544464342972#!/event.php?eid=190544464342972


Of course, Peace Corps does not want anyone to starve or compromise their health...so please, health is our priority. We want every participant to try to eat healthfully off of their given amount, which is the challenge.
I'll be blogging every day, describing my experiences living off of $1 a day. Today was the first day of the week - and I went over the $1 limit in order to get some vegetables in my diet. 


What I bought today: 
Breakfast
--Half loaf of bread: 50 CFAs (~10 cents) 
--With one boiled egg: 100 CFAs (~20 cents) and a tiny bit of sauce (included)
Total breakfast: 150 CFAs (~30 cents)
Lunch
I skipped lunch because I knew I wouldn't have enough money. So, I guzzled water all day instead. 
**PC asks us to include any American food, soap, snacks, water, etc that we buy. They ask us to include it all, and for vols in the city (like me), they ask us to limit our water and electricity intake. We must also include food people give us.
Around lunch time
--My host mom gave me a small bag of dege (milk powder, millet, sugar, water and maybe some yogurt): 100 CFAs (~20 cents)
--My Patron gave me a bag of Baobab candy (honey, sugar, baobab powder, milk powder): 250 CFAs (~50 cents)
--->If I would have eaten nothing else for the day, that equals one dollar. 
But, I was hungry and the point of this week is to try to eat healthfully off of $1 a day.
Dinner
--1 small cucumber: 50 CFAs (~10 cents)
--2 small tomatoes: 100 CFAs (~20 cents)
--1 small onion: 100 CFAs (~20 cents)
--1 Half loaf of bread: 50 CFAs (~10 cents)
Total for dinner: 60 cents


Total for the day: $1.60 (without the food given to me, even though I was hungry: 90 cents)


Tomorrow, I'm going to scale back even more. In the morning, I will eat one egg, without the bread. For dinner, I might get some beans for protein and eat what's left of the salad I made tonight. There are not a lot of nutritional options here, and I definitely can't buy more than 2-3 bites of meat, unless I want to forgo eating for at least one day. 


Hunger and poverty
I've worked alongside Malian entrepreneurs and watched the money they take in and out each day. If they don't do accounting, they may work all day and actually lose money. What makes it more difficult is the fact that 75% of this country is illiterate, so it's not that easy to just teach people accounting. Millions of Malians can't even write their own name or the numbers 1-10 (as I saw when I went to Baba's literacy school). 


And what about the inequalities associated with a lack of electricity, clean drinking water and nutritional food? There are studies after studies that show that kids' brains actually never perform to their potential if they are even a little malnourished as kids. And what about the diarrhea associated with the lack of clean drinking water? Diarrhea-related dehydration is the leading cause of death in the developing world. And...think...it's all preventable. What about how tired we feel when we're sitting in a dark room? When we're sitting in a dark room, melatonin in our brain tells us it's time to go to sleep. So what is the effect of a lack of lights and electricity on the developing world? Being thirsty, hungry and tired all the time...pretty impossible to study, and thus, ever have a fighting chance. 


CFAs (20-40 cents) in profit a day (If that). And if they're illiterate (which many still are, even if they graduated high school), and they don't do accounting, they may never make a profit...and just continue the cycle of never-ending extreme poverty that affects Africa and Asia more than any other places in the world. 


I really, really ask you to participate in Hunger Awareness Week with me and other PCVs. Some of my friends - from America to Venezuela, some of my family and their friends - have also agreed to participate. Because even if it's just the tiniest bit of understanding for one week - maybe it will motivate you all to do something. And by something, I don't mean donate money. 


Because what I see here is that dumping money on the situation is not fixing the problem. If that was the solution, the billion upon billions of dollars handed to African countries would be fixing a large portion of the  world's poverty... And it's not getting better. The people here are used to handouts and are now dependent on foreign aid. Instead, education, understanding and volunteering your time are much better forms of "aid" than blasting out money. 


Join us in Hunger Awareness as soon as possible. Join us today. And please let me know how your experience goes! I'll be blogging every day, and I encourage you to tell others too. 


Food for thought, Mali:
For most people in the rural areas, who herd family cattle or work small family farms, living conditions are barely subsistence level. Houses are made of wood frames with mud walls and hard earth floors. Their diet consists primarily of cooked cereals and milk, and is essentially meatless. They wear secondhand clothes which originate in Europe and are shipped to local markets. Water comes from wells; cooking is done over wood fires; lighting is from small kerosene wick lamps; and sanitation is provided by pit latrines. Children are unlikely to go to school, and there are no local health centers.
(Mali Poverty and wealth, Information about Poverty and wealth in Mali http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/economies/Africa/Mali-POVERTY-AND-WEALTH.html#ixzz1Y3G3zBR1)


To a little more understanding...

Women breaking barriers - PICS of my women's school

A big initiative in Mali is to integrate women into men's traditional roles. One of those pushes includes helping women enter the sewing industry. You might think it's weird - because in the States, women are typically tailors, but here, it's predominantly men. This is why my second service (job) is to teach business skills to women entering the male-dominated field of tailoring. 

These are pics of one of the days I spent at the women's sewing center. I brought along a little girl named Kadia, who wanted to learn how to sew. Of course, she's too young, but I thought it would be enriching for her to see women working in a male-dominated field, and people working hard, in general. Teaching work ethic to youth is very important here. 

These are pics of the sewing school - where the women were using cement sacks to practice their sewing. 

These are Malian women's shirts they drew on the chalkboard.

The photo of the complet (full outfit - shirt and pagne) the women were practicing to make.

To practice they make cement sack clothes - like this dress hanging on the wall.

The only pair of scissors they have for 30 women. Like most things in Mali, they all have to share.

This is a Malian iron. Also why we say some things here look like they're from the Stone Age. But really, they put burning hot coals inside the iron and iron away!

This is Kadia, the little girl who shadowed me/the women sewing. She said some of her favorite things to do were sew, eat and study. :)

This is the sewing school. These are the old Butterfly and Singer sewing machines that we used to use in the States in what...the 50s? In order for women to start their businesses after their classes are finished, they have to buy one of these machines. As you can probably guess, they're very, very, very expensive for Malians to afford - 35,000-40,000 CFAs, which is the equivalent of $70-$80. How on earth, when 75% of Malians live off of $1 a day, could they ever afford this machine? That's why I'm here...I don't know the answer yet, but I'm thinking some "Savings for Change" and other money-saving techniques are going to be very important. 

This is cool - the woman on the right in the green is a teacher. She's been sewing for three years and she is an awesome lady. Today she told me how she is still a teacher because she can't afford a sewing machine to start her own business. She also said it's a challenge because you have to pay to start your own business - "Get papers from the super prefet" which is also expensive. But, the people here just keep on keeping on. It's very promising to actually see a group of people working - they're learning work ethic and taking matters into their own hands, which is oftentimes...rare. 

The next pics are just pics I took from a Malian clothes catalogue. This way you can see what Malian clothes look like. This fabric looks shiny, right? It's called BAZAN, and it's the shiny wax fabric Malians wear for BIG events. 

Here's one of the old Butterfly machines. I'm slowly learning how to sew on these machines!

Front of the sewing center.

Kadia and I - Taking daughters to work! It's so important for girls (here and around the world) to see women in positions of power, in stereotypical male roles, in respected positions - it shows them that it's possible - because someone before them is doing it. They then believe in themselves, that they too, can achieve...anything.