Tribute to Kathreen Ricketson

It was with great shock and sadness that I learned about the tragic death of Kathreen and her husband Rob last week.

When I started blogging four years ago, she was one of my main inspirations. I first 'met' her and her blog Whipup via the Craft blog, which I had been following for some time. She was creative, fun, helpful and prolific.  Her blog was always jampacked with creative ideas and inspiration. She loved to share and to teach. Her kids magazine Action Pack is testament to her - and her family's - dedication to creating a happy, healthy and wholesome environment for their kids to grow in and learn.

When we decided to travel to Australia in April 2012, I wanted an Australian craft blogger to do a guest posts for me while I was away. Kathreen was the obvious choice. Her post on why she loves Australia can be viewed here. Soon after our visit, our lives changed and we relocated from Dubai to Adelaide, Australia. We became Aussies too. We kept in e-mail and blog contact and when I learned that their roadtrip would take them through Adelaide, I was delighted to have the opportunity to finally meet her.

We met on a Tuesday afternoon in late January, at the Adelaide Central Market, where we had coffee and chatted for an hour of two. We talked about blogs, quilting, travelling and motherhood. I met Rob and the two kids. I went home that afternoon and told my husband that if we lived closer, I think our two families could become good friends. We like all the same things: camping, outdoors, travel, creativity and sharing it all with our children.

I followed their trip on her blog and made mental notes of all the great places they were exploring, adding them to my list of Places We Still Have To See.

Her last post written at Coral Bay starts like this: We are bush camping at a station on Ningaloo reef, Western Australia. A dream come true — is that totally corn ball?

Although this story has one of the saddest endings I ever experienced, and my heart breaks for the children, I am comforted by the fact that they were living their dream. They had several months where they could devote themselves to their children and create family memories that can never be taken from them.

When I think of Kathreen, this is what comes to mind:

Inspired crafter

Prolific writer

Devoted mother

Dear Kathreen, 
it was a priviledge to know you.

* A fund has been established to help support the children. Find the details here.

*Photos taken by Kathreen, cropped and edited by me

My visit to a Bedouin weaver

It is a windswept Saturday morning.  The Weather Bureau warned about cold winds blowing across the Gulf from the snow covered mountains of Iran. As the sand billows across the road and the driver clings to the wheel, I peer at the desolate and featureless desert landscape passing by the car window. “Who would want to live here?” I wonder.

I am on my way to Sila, a small village in the Northern part of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi; about 3 hours drive from the city and the last outpost before the border with Saudi Arabia.  There is nothing here. Not even dunes. Just flat stretches of coarse, colourless sand as far as the eye can see.

I am accompanied by Leila Ben-Gacem, the project leader of the Sougha Project. We are on our way to visit Bhkita and Hamama, a Bedouin mother-and-daughter team who are part of Leila’s team of traditional weavers. They graciously opened their home to me to introduce me to the art of Sadou weaving.

Leila showing off one of Bhkita's bags

Sadou is a traditional Bedouin form of weaving. The women, working on ground looms, produce long narrow strips of patterned textile using yarn spun from camel and goat hair or sheep wool. These textile strips are then sewn together to make the walls of their traditional tents, camel bags and other utilitarian items.

Bhkita spinning yarn on a hand-held spindle

These days, however, things look a bit different. With the rapid economic development of the United Arab Emirates, the Bedouin’s nomadic lifestyle has all but disappeared.  The government has built houses for the nomads and settled them in formal villages where they have learned to live with electricity and other modern conveniences. The children go to school and move on to careers in the city.  It is a wonderful privilege and opportunity their parents never had, but it means ancient Bedouin traditions are fast dying out.

One of these traditions is Sadou weaving. A craft which were passed on from mother to daughter and which were done in communal settings where folklore and female wisdom could be passed down from one generation to the next. Now only the older women still know how to do it and their daughters are in general not interested.

A close-up of the tent-wall

Enters Leila and her Sougha Project. It is an initiative launched by the Khalifa Fund aimed at preserving local heritage by developing traditional artisans. The women are taught how to adapt their products to the current market and trained to create opportunities for themselves.

Leila is a petite Tunisian woman with short dark hair and a big smile.  What she lacks in stature she more than makes up for in energy and enthusiasm.  She lives for this project and these Bedouin women. I’ve met Leila last summer. She showed me the products for sale at their kiosk in Abu Dhabi, told me about the Sougha project and invited me to visit the Liwa Date Festival where I would see the ladies working. 

I visited the date festival later in July 2011 where I observed some of the ladies do their telli embroidery (that’s a different story...) and weave palm fronds into baskets, mats and other household items.  The weavers were displaying their wares but obviously not doing any weaving on the show.  I bought a small woven carpet from Bhkita’s stall.  Her work mesmerised me. It was obvious that here was a very talented woman. Her designs and quality of craftsmanship were a step above the rest. The language barrier (my Arabic is as limited as her English) meant that it was not possible to ask her about her work but I wanted to know more. Leila obliged and organised for me to visit her home. And here we are...

As we arrive at Bkhita’s house we are welcomed by her daughter Hamama and invited into a Bedouin tent erected right next to their brick and mortar house.  The inside walls of the tent are made from traditional woven wall panels, the floor is covered in carpets. Big pillows are set around the edge of the tent as floor seating. A low wooden table is laid out with Arabic coffee, dates, fruit and pastries.  The only reminder that we are in the 21^st century is the big TV screen against the one wall.

Enjoying coffee and treats with Bhkita and Hamama

As soon as we are seated on the carpet, Hamama serves us small cups of coffee and dates.  It is obvious that both women are delighted to see Leila. They chatter non-stop updating Leila on all the latest gossip in town.  Leila tells me they are very honoured to share their craft with me and I must please show the world the beautiful things they make. I am happy to oblige.

Admiring Bhkita's work

In between telling me about her children and grandchildren (Leila has to translate very fast, as Bhkita never stops talking!) Bhkita shows me some of her finished work.  She uses the woven cloth to make bags in different sizes - from handbags, laptop bags, pencil cases, make-up bags and more – to coasters, table runners and other household goods.  She not only weaves but also sews the bags all by herself.  She buys camel leather from the tannery in Al Ain (another Khalifa Fund initiative), the cotton she uses for the lining as well as the thread and fasteners she buys in Abu Dhabi or Doha. She uses a modern, electricity-driven sewing machine.

A Sadou laptop bag

Bhkita’s age is a mystery but I guess her to be in her late sixties. She never went to school. Her childhood was spent roaming the desert with her family. According to her daughter she attended an ‘illiteracy eradication programme’ provided by the government. She can write her name and she ‘knows numbers’.  But don’t be fooled – this is a very smart, intelligent woman. And immensely talented.

Bhkita's latest design.  She is very proud of this one. 

Can you see all the counting going on here?

The woven strips she makes as inserts to her leather bags are narrower than what she would normally make for a tent wall. The patterns are intricate and delicate. The colour combinations are inspirational. The quality of craftsmanship is exceptional.  Bhkita is very proud of her work and her designs.  She makes sure I notice that there are no flaws in the textile or pattern.  She doesn’t make mistakes.

Bhkita has an amazing instinct for colour

When we had enough (too much) to eat and drink it was time for her to show me how she works. The ‘workshop’ is in the house.  As we enter the front door, the floor loom is the first thing I see.  It is set out on the carpet in the reception area of her house. In a traditional setting the loom would be made of split palm tree trunks held together with palm fibre twine. The single heddle would be held in place with wooden stakes.  The ‘modern’ version I see in front of me is made of galvanised pipes held together with nylon rope. The piece of pipe holding the string heddles is kept in place with bricks.

Bhkita with her floor loom

I am not a weaver. When I look at woven textile I look at the colours, the patterns and the texture. I don’t pay much attention to the technicalities of the weaving process. The little bit that I do know about weaving is that the warp yarns are the strong ones which are strung across the loom and keep the textile intact but are usually not visible in the finished product.  The weft yarns are softer, thicker and of different colours. They determine the design.

At work

I was therefore quite surprised when I realized that with the floor loom things work the other way around.  The warp yarns, strung across the loom in a figure-eight, hold the pattern and the weft yarn provides the strength. Therefore the warp yarns are the coloured ones and are strung onto the loom in a predetermined order. The weaver has to work out the pattern before she sets up the loom. This sounds easy if you have a graph or a pattern to work from, but these women are illiterate.  They don’t have paper patterns to work from.  It’s all in their head. No wonder Bhkita ‘knows numbers’ – counting is what she does!

The warp yarns determine the pattern

Bhkita sits on top of the woven part of her textile, facing the heddles. Her hands seems to work effortlessly, but I soon realise weaving on a floor loom is a physical job.  She has two sword beaters or el haifs (flat pieces of wood with pointed ends and bevelled edges) set into the warp yarns in different configurations, as determined by her pattern. By turning one of them on the side she opens up the shed and increases the tension at the same time.  After she passed the shuttle or el masr (a stick on which the weft yarns has been wound) through, she beats the weft into place with a hook beater.  In traditional times this used to be a gazelle horn but now it is an iron hook or a bent screw driver. Beating every row is very important to keep the textile tight and to ensure an even tension throughout. 

The string heddles and the sword beaters

  

Bhkita enjoys demonstrating her work to me.  Every now and then she makes sure that I understand everything, that I have good enough photos of every step and whether she can tell me anything more... And if I’m satisfied she carries on talking about her children and their families and about their winter camp-outs in the desert.

She tells me about harvesting desert truffles("faqah"). When the desert had good rains in December but stays dry during January, the Bedouins go truffle hunting in March. It’s a treasured delicacy, difficult to find but oh, so delicious to eat.

On our way back to the city I look at the desolate landscape with new eyes. It is still harsh and barren but now I see colour and pattern. And now I know who wants to live here - people who see beauty in the landscape; people who love their children and family.  And people who can find truffles in the sand.

Girl Effect Blogging Campaign

It is like a thin thread woven into a piece of fabric – the way a certain issue keeps on reappearing in one’s life.  You never consciously look for it, but the next thing you know, there it is again...

This thing keeps on appearing in my life, always on the edge, never really intruding into my daily comings-and-goings, and oh so easy to ignore, to put it off as ‘not really my problem’ and ‘I’m too busy to get involved’.

It has crossed my path again yesterday, and all it asked from me is to write about it. Surely I can do that. It is what I do, after all.  So this is my small contribution:

Today, more than 600 million girls live in the developing world. Approximately one-quarter of these girls are not in school.

Adolescent girls are uniquely capable of raising the standard of living in the developing world.  It has been shown:  she will reinvest her income and knowledge back into her family and her community.  As an educated mother, an active citizen, an ambitious entrepreneur or prepared employee, a girl will break the cycle of intergenerational poverty.

That is the Girl Effect.

Yet, despite her proven potential, she is more likely to be uneducated, a child bride, and exposed to HIV/AIDS.  Less than two cents of every international development dollar is directed at her.

A few years ago it came into my heart to visit Afghanistan.  I had just read the book The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and I told my husband that if I ever get the chance to visit Afghanistan, I am going to grab it with both hands.  Not long afterwards a friend told me about an outreach programme inviting people to visit Afghanistan to witness their projects first hand. And off I went. I visited Kabul, travelled by road to Mazar I Sharif and further north to the border with Tajikistan. I saw schools being built, children being educated and women being trained in entrepreneurship. It was an eye opener. 

Since then everything about Central Asia caught my interest.  I read Greg Mortenson’s books Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools.  Through his organization Central Asia Institute (CAI), he has built many schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan.  He is passionate about providing education for all children but especially girls.  Here is an extract from his last book explaining how educating girls can transform a society:

Income growth:

Girls’ education leads to increased income for the girls themselves and for nations as a whole.  Increasing the share of women with a secondary education by 1 percent boosts annual per-capita income growth by 0.3 percent.  That’s significant, since per-capita income gains in developing countries seldom exceed 3 percent per year.  Educating girls also boosts farming productivity.  Educated farmers are more efficient and their farms are more productive, which leads to increase crop yields and declines in malnutrition.

Maternal and Children’s Health:

Educated women have smaller, healthier and better-educated families.  The better educated the women in society, the lower the fertility rate. A 2000 study in Brazil found that literate women had an average of 2.5 children while illiterate women had and average of six children.  The better educated the women, the lower the infant mortality rate.  “The mother’s education is often the single most important influence on children’s survival...Educated mothers learn how to keep their children healthy and how to use health services, improve nutrition and sanitation, and take advantage of their own increased earning capability.  Girls who stay in school also marry later, when they are better able to bear and care for children.” By increasing health-care knowledge and reducing the number of pregnancies, female education significantly reduces the risk of maternal mortality.  Educated women are more likely to insist on education for their own children, especially their daughters. Their children study as much as two hours more each day than children of illiterate mothers and stay in school longer.

Women Empowerment:

Educated girls and women are more likely to stand up for themselves and resist violence. “In poor areas where women are isolated within their communities, have little education and cannot earn much, girls are often regarded as an economic burden and women and girls sometimes suffer deliberate neglect or outright harm.”  Educated women channel more of their resources to the health and education of their children than men do.  Educated women are more likely to participate in political discussions, meetings and decision making.  Studies show that education promotes more representative, effective government.  As women are educated and approach parity with  men, research shows that “governments and other institutions function better and with less corruption.”  Girls who become literate tend to teach their mothers how to read and write, much more than do males.

Closer to home, in 2007, the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, launched a fundraising campaign called Dubai Cares.  It is based on the belief that education is the most effective tool to break the cycle of poverty. Dubai Cares is an organization dedicated to improving children’s access to quality primary education in developing countries. Dubai Cares works in countries with chronic deficiencies in primary education where it implements development programs that target the underlying causes preventing children from accessing quality primary education.  Dubai Cares’ vision is a world in which all children can go to school.

Both these initiatives (CAI and Dubai Cares) were launched by men. Men with a vision for a better world.  A world where women count and are respected as equal members of society. It is ironic that both these initiatives were born in the part of the world where girls and women in general, are perceived as second rate citizens.  And where men are perceived as (and in many cases are) the oppressors.

I’ve known about the Girl Effect movement for a while now.  I ‘liked’ them on Facebook and get their updates on my wall every now and again.  I am inspired by these girls who fight the odds to improve their own lives and then go back to help those around them. And then I forget about it again and I carry on with my own busy life...

Yesterday I came across the blog of Tara Sophia Mohr called Wise Living. I don’t know how I got there – I’ve never read heard of her or read her blog before... She started a 2011 Girl Effect BloggingCampaign.  And there it was – an invitation to get involved.  And here I am – getting involved.  Please join me.  If you blog, join the blogging campaign.  If you have a Facebook profile, post about the Girl Effect on your wall.  Look at their website, they have great ideas for everybody to get involved, spread the word and help a girl. Or two.

More Arabian Design Inspiration

Just look at these beautiful things!

We spent some time at the wonderful Qasr Al Sarab hotel this past weekend

and all these Arabian designs really spoke to me.

I can see so many different quilt and embroidery designs in here.

It's time to get to work.

More about the hotel 

and the rest of our weekend later.

Henna

In my street wanderings this week, I found this little book

It has wonderful Arabic henna designs for hands and feet

Isn't this beautiful?  Who needs shoes?

The book is part of a series.  There are others with Indian designs, Wedding designs, etc.

I can see a few embroidery designs in there.  Can you?

Leaving 2010 with a bang!

Before 2011 runs away with us, let me show you how we spent our Christmas and New Year holiday.

We had a house full of South African family visiting us in Dubai. How wonderful to have a family Christmas holiday at home! Yes, after 6 years in Dubai, this is home. It was really special to share all the wonders of this city and country with our family.

we spoiled my in-laws (and ourselves) with a night at Bab Al Shams

and then when the rest of the family (my sister-in-law with her husband and 2 children and my brother) arrived, we spent 2 absolutely awesome days on a dhow in the Arabian Gulf

Christmas lunch around our dining room table was a heart-warming affair. It was the first time our dining room table was surrounded by 12 family members!

On the 26th we decided to reach new heights on the 124th floor of the Burj Khalifa,

after which we had an al fresco dinner on the promenade facing the fountain...

My in-laws left the next day, so the younger generation spend the day at Atlantis, the Palm

The day ended tired but happy with a beautiful view of Dubai from the Palm crescent.

And of course the year had to end away from all the glitz and glamour in the desert.

New Year's eve in the desert, around a camp-fire, with family. Can it get any better?

Only if you can watch the Burj Khalifa fireworks from the desert...

Happy New Year!!

May 2011 be a blessed and joyful affair

Nepal 3: Craft

Thamel is the tourist suburb of Katmandu. It is where you will find all the backpackers and budget accommodation, the trekking and adventure companies and of course the craft shops.



The narrow streets are lined with small shops selling everything from clothes to trekking gear. Buddist and Hindu statues, traditional crafts and other obvious touristy trinkets are everywhere.



I loved the clothes!



Felt made from yak-wool is very typical of Nepalese culture. Obviously it had to be adapted for the tourist trade.



Yak wool



Cotton yarn



Rayon from Bhutan. I always thought rayon was a synthetic material, but apparently not. Although it is a manufactured material it is made from natural fibres. I bought a piece from this shop to make into a tablecloth. I have since found out that the process of producing the material causes a lot of environmental pollution. I am now less impressed with my purchase.



Silk shop



Sari shop



A woven throw from a road-side stall



Crocheted truck-decorations sold next to the road. We never had a chance to stop at one of these stalls, so this is the best photo I could get. The women sat on the ground next to the road in small groups crocheting. The trucks coming from India are all heavily decorated inside and out.



This boy was working his pedal-powered Singer at high speed. He works in a shop that sells decorated t-shirts. He can make any design you want, even brands like Reebok and Hard Rock! He was wearing a school uniform so I assume he was the owners' son and not child labour (which is rife in Nepal).



Street art on the side of a delapidated building.



This man carried a tray with small bottles of coloured pigment. He had a range of minute little stamps with which he could make beautiful patterns on your body. He made one on my hand. It is really pretty but unfortunately it doesn't last very long.