Race to the Finish

So, sorry it’s been so long. I was incredibly busy last week, with just tons and tons of meetings and organizing things and buying things for the CBO and the women’s group. It was an exhausting week, but there were a couple of highlights. On Tuesday Wycliffe, Philip and I finally completed the registration for the CBO, which enables the group to do things like open a bank account. And on Thursday I went with Mary and another lady to buy soap-making materials, so that on Friday they were able to make their first batch of 25 liters. Aside from those events, though, the week was pretty much just, well, exhausting. I know I said it before, but it bears repeating.

As a result, on Sunday I did very little, which was great. I was quite happy with it.

This week started off poorly, as I got dehydrated and ended up with heat exhaustion-type symptoms on Tuesday. So I had a crappy couple of days because of that, and lost some time I would have preferred not to, because the fact of the matter is that I only have two more weeks of work, followed by a week to travel, before returning to the US. I’ve been trying to impress on the women just how little time is left in order to light a fire under them so that they get themselves organized and produce enough of the hand-made bags, placemats, and other items that they want to produce in order to make it worthwhile to send them back to the US with Chelina in September.

Right now the products that are hopefully going to end up in the women’s product line are a tote bag, a messenger bag, place mats, a small envelope-style clutch/billfold, and a skirt that the ladies think is shockingly short. Each of these items will be made in the colorful, bold printed fabrics that are traditional to East Africa. I think that if they produce at least 40 of the place mats and 12-15 of each of the other items, they would be in brilliant shape to stock the Etsy store that KDI manages from the US. Even if they only managed to produce the mats (the easiest item to make) and the two types of bags, I’d be happy. But needless to say, they’ll have to really get to work. I’m hoping that they’ll be in production by Wednesday, if they finish producing the samples Chelina and I have asked for and we are able to buy fabric and rent sewing machines for them to use. This will give them about a week before I quit working and two weeks before Chelina and I leave Kenya.

Good luck, ladies…