Pretty average week at site and it was great. Yesterday I finished my “Obama” cloth which took almost 3 months to do due to travel and my weaving speed. I put in about 5 hours/day in the loom this last week to finish it up. All the guys had bets on when I would finish so I had to make sure Bright or Joshua won. It took over 70,000 passes to make the 12 strips. This cloth is a thicker pattern than most so progress was extremely slow. It was based off a traditional pattern and it’s customary to fire a musket in the air while you’re cutting one of those from your loom. We were in the weaving center so cheers and mock firing of guns (fingers) had to do but it was great. The palm wine guy in town just tapped another tree so we had a calabash each to celebrate. The guys at the thread shop didn’t think I’d be able to do one this hard so I can’t wait to go buy threads for the next level up this week. This one should look pretty sweet, I’m pumped.
On the way back from my morning exploratory bike ride (I’m cutting back on the running so now I go down bush paths on my bike and check out the tiny villages which is really cool) I ran into some Germans here for kente so I showed them around. After lunch they went to leave and a girl gave me her email address and I said, “Oh I’ll email you in case you want more kente.” She laughed and said, “No, that’s in case you ever find yourself in Germany.” Real smooth Dan, real smooth. Maybe it was because this time I didn’t try my German…
When Harry Potter 6 was coming out the kids and I did a HP movie marathon on my front porch. The girls really loved Emma Watson, the girl who plays Hermione, because she was smarter than the boys and better at magic. They think I’m famous cause I met Obama and hang out w/the big men in town so they asked if we could write her. We did and today when I checked my mail I had an autographed picture from Emma in it! The kids are gonna love it when I go back tonight.