African Knitting Group: Laurie and Baine Craft, Cameroon

From Laurie and Baine Craft

Yesterday morning, I met with the facilitators of the widows' support groups/Bible studies that I organized and started when I lived in Cameroon 2 years ago. I was VERY encouraged to learn that the groups are still thriving and continue to be a significant source of encouragement and hope for these women.

The most exciting part of the meeting came at the end when the widows told me that they have been making hand-made crafts to sell and use the money to help the neediest widows among them. Toward the end of the meeting, each widow proceeded to pull out and work on their project - crocheted hats, woven baskets, etc. Always prepared for such an occasion, I pulled out my knitting (which they were all VERY excited about) and spent the next 3 hours improving my Kom language skills, singing, laughing, and crafting with 15 widows from the community (pictured below). Maybe it's my homeschooling roots, but I couldn't have asked for a better morning. I very much look forward to these weekly gatherings for the rest of my time here.

I have some video footage of their beautiful singing and danceing, but it's been an hour, and it still isn't downloaded. Pictures will have to suffice for now. Enjoy them!

(p.s. Lest you be deceived, there have also been plenty of the less appealing aspects of living in Cameroon in the past few days - not the least of which being cleaning tons of mouse and chicken poop that was caked and crusted in our stored dishes and pots. I thought I was going to vommit through the whole process!)


Also, as requested (by Joanna!), this is a picture of Anna - my dear friend about whom I blogged in the last post. The baby in the following picture is Anna's nephew who I got to hold and rock for about an hour yesterday after my first African Stitch-N-Bi***. :)