natural dyes!!!

Internet's still down, but I just wanted to share that we had an incredibly successful natural dye workshop. The weavers I work with are even more excited about natural dyes than I am, if you can believe it, and less than a week after the training they started making and using their own dyes. It's incredibly exciting to watch them take control of their supply line, creative expression, and product quality all at once - it's simultaneous economic and personal and creative empowerment.

Above is a photo of me and the incredible, amazing Amina Yabis, an outstanding Moroccan role model who traveled 15 hours from the other end of Morocco to lead the workshop. In the background you can see some of the new colors the weavers are now using in their work! Hopefully I can post some photos of their new and improved products within a month or two.

We're planning another workshop in a few weeks - an exchange with an established women's weaving cooperative - which will hopefully provide even more ideas for new designs, motifs and techniques, not to mention a sense of what it means to be an independent women's cooperative. Between then and now I'll be traveling with my parents, who are coming to visit next week! There are just about six months left of my service here and I can't believe how quickly the time is slipping by.