THURSDAY

06|03|10

I was going to work out or go for a walk but ended up not getting up till someone knocked on my door to let me know that it was 73o and we were leaving for work. I threw on some clothes and took a taxi with sarah and Liz. Sarah had this taxi man from yesterday who had asked her to hold a baby on her lap on the way into town. The baby looked so sweet on Sarahs lap. On the way into Cape Coast we had to stop of at the school to drop off the baby. Its crazy to me how young they start having the children go to school. We also had to stop at the gas station. It seemed like we would never make it to work. When we got there we did trend research just for a bit. We were supposed to take off right away to see Gina who is a batiker at her other job. We found that we weren’t going to leave till later on in the day so we had some time to do research. Before we left we sat in on a meeting with batikers and seamstresses. Ekiatte was running the meeting which was just to get everyone together and up to date on things that Global Mama’s is currently doing. Around 11 we went to mama Gina’s work. She works at a private school on the way to Kakum. Shes the assistant to headmaster. When we were there we went on a tour of the school. We went mostly to get some inspiration. The school uniforms were pink and blue… all school uniforms are really cute with sweet color combinations. Theirs especially are really nice.
The school is 11 years old; at the moment their building a new library and more classrooms. Most of the children live on the school grounds unless they live close by and can walk home. They have hot school lunches just like the states have; if they want they can buy their own food that’s not on the menu. I think it was more like snacks and things that aren’t included.
They fed us fan ice and 2 meat pies. I couldn’t obviously eat the meat pies because they have meat in them but I didn’t want to be rude so I just ate the outside pastry that wasn’t touching the filling. It was actually really nice and reminded me a lot of pasties. I was super excited to have the Fanice too!! They’re my favorite and had craving one since we had left the office but obviously couldn’t find one to save my life!! We got introduced to the headmaster. Just like everyone else I think he shook all of our hands 4 or 5 times each. Everyone is really friendly. Not sure what was up with his outfit, it looked like he was wearing his silk pj’s to work. It was a silk pin-striped pant and shirt combination; looked really cool on him but I don’t think anyone in the states could pull it off.
When school was out we took the yellow school bus home to Ginas. We had to finish off our batik workshop and even though it was just the five of us we knew that it was going to take all night again.
Batiking went well. The color didn’t come out how I had planned. I really like my print; i think it could work if it was smaller and a bit more consistent. Wish we could have done more of the batik but Gina took over most of the work. Understandable, thinking it would be cool if we could get some supplies to practice at the house. Maria said that Judy ( the one who owns One stone next to our house in Elmina) has the equipment to heat wax to do batik so we could give her money and she might let us come over and use her things. That would really help out when we are trying to test out new stamps for the line. That way we can see firsthand how they look.
When we got back we went across the street for dinner. Bread and cheese for me. Everyone else had sausages that are one cedi each. They come with a spicy peanut crumble on the side that’s used for dipping which i hear is really good. Might just buy some of that to put in vegetables or pasta.