Monday, May 31, 2010

Today we took the morning off work to go to Kakum National Forrest. They are upping the price tomorrow. The price for Non-Ghanaians to do the canopy walk will go from 9 Ghana Cedis to 30 Ghana Cedis tomorrow. Therefore we decided we should go today so we didn’t have to spend so much money.

Once again we tricked a Tro-Tro into taking us there and bringing us back. I almost feel bad because they just sit and wait for us to be finished instead of driving other people, but apparently it’s a better deal for them too because they are making more money and its nice for us because then we never get stranded.

The canopy walk was amazing. Words or pictures just don’t to it justice. I never wanted to come down. The view was just unreal. There is another option where you can spend the night in a tree house in the forest, which would be awesome, so I think we are going to look into doing that sometime.

We came back to work for the rest of the afternoon. We have a shipment that we have to send out by Friday and each individual garment has to be folded and placed in its own plastic bag. For the rest of the afternoon we folded and bagged garments hardly making a dent in the mass amount of garments to be folded.

We ship all the orders that go to the U.S. to Kristen in Minnesota and then she ships them individually to the customers. That way it makes it easier on the customers because they don’t have to deal with customs. It also helps with distribution costs. As my parents have recently discovered its extremely expensive to ship to and from here. They said it was around $230.00 to ship a 5lbs package. It also gives her a chance to take a final look at all the garments and make sure they are up to Global Mamas standards before sending them out.

After work I made Mac N’ Cheese with noodles and laughing cow cheese. It was not nearly as good as Eli’s, but it got the job done. I’m trying not to eat at Elis everyday. Whenever I go there the food is so good I eat myself into a coma and I’m trying not to spend money.

Monday, May 31, 2010

Today we took the morning off work to go to Kakum National Forrest. They are upping the price tomorrow. The price for Non-Ghanaians to do the canopy walk will go from 9 Ghana Cedis to 30 Ghana Cedis tomorrow. Therefore we decided we should go today so we didn’t have to spend so much money.

Once again we tricked a Tro-Tro into taking us there and bringing us back. I almost feel bad because they just sit and wait for us to be finished instead of driving other people, but apparently it’s a better deal for them too because they are making more money and its nice for us because then we never get stranded.

The canopy walk was amazing. Words or pictures just don’t to it justice. I never wanted to come down. The view was just unreal. There is another option where you can spend the night in a tree house in the forest, which would be awesome, so I think we are going to look into doing that sometime.

We came back to work for the rest of the afternoon. We have a shipment that we have to send out by Friday and each individual garment has to be folded and placed in its own plastic bag. For the rest of the afternoon we folded and bagged garments hardly making a dent in the mass amount of garments to be folded.

We ship all the orders that go to the U.S. to Kristen in Minnesota and then she ships them individually to the customers. That way it makes it easier on the customers because they don’t have to deal with customs. It also helps with distribution costs. As my parents have recently discovered its extremely expensive to ship to and from here. They said it was around $230.00 to ship a 5lbs package. It also gives her a chance to take a final look at all the garments and make sure they are up to Global Mamas standards before sending them out.

After work I made Mac N’ Cheese with noodles and laughing cow cheese. It was not nearly as good as Eli’s, but it got the job done. I’m trying not to eat at Elis everyday. Whenever I go there the food is so good I eat myself into a coma and I’m trying not to spend money.

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Today we hung low key again. It was rainy again so we just hung around the house. We looked for board games to play and found a murder mystery dinner game, so we played it at dinner. It was really fun. I was the host and everyone had character to act out. It was fun because everyone got really into it. I think were going to look for more games like that online and maybe plan to play one once a week.

There is a new person coming this week I think around Tuesday or Wednesday. The house is really filling up fast. It reminds me of being a summer camp.

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Today the plan was to go to the pool and relax, but then it rained. We all hung at the house all day. I worked on my final paper for my internship and started drafting a pattern for my final project. Nothing too exciting, just a nice relaxing Saturday!

Friday, May 28, 2010

We didn’t go to work today, we went to the city built on stilts, Nzulezo, instead. We left the house at 5:30am and got a Tro-Tro to take us to Takoradi, which is about an hour west of Elmina. From Takoradi we should have had to transfer to another Tro-Tro or to a bus to take us the rest of the way, but Ekiate negotiated with the drive and he agreed to take us the rest of the way. Originally we thought the ride would be between two and three hours. It ended up taking almost four and a half. That is along time to sit in a Tro-Tro smooched together with other passengers. Next time maybe we will splurge and take a fast car. Tro-Tros stop often to pick up and drop off other passengers fast cars take you straight there, and they have air conditioning!

When we were getting closer to Nzulezo the road turned to dirt and there were millions of potholes. I’m really surprised our Tro-Tro didn’t get a flat tire or worse, get stuck. In order to complete the journey to Nzulezo we had to take an hour canoe ride through a lagoon. We kidnapped our drivers and paid for them to come to Nzulezo with us. We thought it would be nice because they have probably never been and that way they didn’t have to just sit and wait for us, but mostly because we didn’t want them to leave us there stranded with no ride home.

The canoe ride was my favorite part. We all sang songs and were laughing and having fun. It reminded me of being at summer camp. It was a good bonding experience for all of us. I was secretly terrified that our canoe would tip over, not because I cant swim or I was afraid of what was in the water, but because I was scared my backpack would get wet and all my electronics would be ruined. I thought I was doing a good job hiding my terror, but Sarah claims she could read my face like a book. Thankfully we made it to Nzulezo dry... well dry except for the fact we were drenched in sweat after sitting in the midday sun for an hour.

The village was amazing. It just boggles my mind that people live there away from everything on top of the water. The village wasn’t very big but they said 500 people live there; it must be pretty cramped when everyone is there. During they day they canoe to the mainland. They said most of them work in agriculture so they have to canoe for an hour each day to work and an hour home. I bet they’re all ripped.

After the canoe ride we hopped back in the Tro-Tro and traveled home. By the time we got back to Elmina we were all exhausted and starving. Thank God for Eli and her Mac n’ Cheese.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

When we got to work this morning we went straight back to sketching designs for our stamps for our batiking project this afternoon. After looking at most of the batik designs that global mamas already has, I think the simpler the design the better. I feel like the more details you try to add the more cluttered it looks. After sketching many ideas it was hard to decide which one to use for my stamp. Even though this is my first time batiking I am hoping that I like the end result so that I can use it for my final project. I don’t want to have to pay for the workshop again. I ended up choosing a design I made out of dots and lines. It’s really simple, but still cute.

After deciding on which stamp we were going to use we had to cut a block of foam into smaller squares. Then, we carved our designs into to the block. After this we went to on of the Global Mamas, Georgina’s, home to finish the batiking process.

In order to get to Georgina we stuffed all 7 of us, plus the driver, into a 5-person car. It was quite a cramped ride and by the time we got to Georgina’s we were all dripping with sweat.

Georgina went over the basics of the textile chemistry they use to dye the fabrics. She went to a University in Ghana and has a degree in Textile Science. As well as being a Global Mama, she is also the Head Mistress at a school here. It seemed like she really knew what she was talking about and was passionate about textile design. The way she cared for the industry reminded me a lot of Usha, the textile teacher at CMU.

Georgina taught us that the word batik means to draw or write with wax. The first stage in batik depends on the color you want the stamped design to be. I choose to leave mine white. So the first stage for me was to stamp my fabric with wax. Then you get the fabric wet in cold water. Next, you place the fabric into the dye. After it is totally saturated you hang it to dry. Then you repeat the process using different stamps or colored dye depending on the intended end result. I died mine yellow first and followed it with green.

Something interesting I learned today while we were batiking is when you mix the dye they use here it turns to a color other then the color it will be at the end. For example, the yellow was purple at first and then by oxidation the dye turned from purple to yellow while on the fabric.

Everybody Wants to Know a Vomiting Obruni

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

This morning for breakfast I made a grilled cheese sandwich. We have a gas stove in the house that you have to light with a match. It makes me nervous, knowing my luck I would be the one to burn the house down. I haven’t really figured out how to control the heat yet either so it got a little burnt, but I ate it anyways and it was nice to have something familiar. My stomach is still not really feeling adventurous about food.

We have pretty much got a system down about getting to work. Usually we have to wait for everyone to leave the house, and then wait for everyone to get a taxi. Today as soon as there was a group of four ready we just left. It worked way better. I hate waiting around for people.

When we got to work we started working on the Meredith dress. I suggested that it would be more efficient if we split up so we weren’t all working on the same thing. So, while Carla and Ellen worked on the dress pattern Nick and I worked on creating a layout of the kids ruffle dress. Afterwards, we looked at a spreadsheet from Renee about which items they would be dropping for the 2011 catalog. We also looked over the new items they want us to design for the new catalog. I will be concentrating on Mens Wear and Childrens Wear. It looks like we have a lot of work ahead of us. I’m excited.

Alice also emailed us back about the kids hoodie pattern we made corrections to last week. She agreed that the sleeves are too long and they needed to be shortened. The pattern design book we have here says sleeves for kids 2-4 should be 15in from shoulder to wrist, which is what we did, but it is sort of out dated. Alice said she has a newer book that says sleeves should be only 13in so I shortened the sleeves 2in on both sizes.

We spent a lot of the afternoon trend forecasting. We looked through magazines and on the Internet for different inspirations and ideas. The power went out for a little bit because there was a big storm, but it didn’t stay off long, which was nice because my computer battery was almost dead.

After trend forecasting we took a quick look ahead at what we will be doing over the next couple weeks. Tomorrow we are taking a batik workshop where we will get a better understanding of the laborious dying process. We also get to batik our own fabric. So, after trend forecasting we spent the rest of the afternoon at the office brainstorming and sketching stamp ideas.

When we were catching a cab back to Elmina after work we ran into the driver whose taxi I threw up in on Monday. How embarrassing. It’s one thing to get sick around someone you will never see again and totally different when you’re going to run into them all the time and you’re now labeled puke face. But he had a good sense of humor and we laughed about it. Then he dropped us off and asked how he could see me again. I laughed and told him I’m sure I’d see him around, but seriously, who would want to hang out with a vomiting obruni?

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Today is Africa Unity day which means there is no work!

My stomach was still weak from revenge of the Red Red but overall I felt much better. Sarah, Carla, and I spent the day by the pool. The others went to the beach. I would have gone, but I didn’t want to venture too far from home in case the Red Red decided to come back for round two.

We laid by the pool all day. I laid in the shade and napped for part of the day it was so relaxing, a great way to spend the holiday.

For dinner, Eli made me rice and fruit. Everyone else ate banku, a dish made from broiled fermented corn dough with okro stew. I’m still super nervous about trying new foods now. My stomach is still really weak and even the smell of weird foods makes me feel ill. Eli said that it is quite spicy and would be hard on my stomach too.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Today was the first day our new friends came to the office. They went on a tour like we did our first day. I decided to go on the tour again so that hopefully this time I would remember how to get places. George is such a good tour guide, and the tour was even better the second time. I am getting better at understanding the Ghanaian accent and now I know George better so I understand his since of humor and when he would make jokes sometimes I would get it.

When Ghanaians speak English they have a really funny way of phrasing things. For example, instead of saying, “is something wrong?” They say “You are ok?” and instead of saying, “wait a little bit”, they say, “wait small small”. Sometimes that makes it more difficult to understand them too, but now that im getting used to it its getting easier.

While we were on our tour we stopped to exchange money, I exchanged the rest of my American money in to Ghanaian money. This probably wont surprise anyone, because it is such a “Katie” thing to do, but after we were leaving the money exchange I reached in my bag and couldn’t my wallet with all money I had just exchanged in it. I was convinced it either fell out along the way somewhere or someone took it. After nearly having a heart attack and further inspection I found my wallet in the little zipper part of my bag, Thank goodness!

We got back from our tour just in time for lunch. I had Red Red for lunch. Red Red is a traditional Ghanaian dish made of beans. Eli makes it and we had it for dinner one night so I knew I would like it. I took it back to the office and we all ate lunch. Others had gotten goat rice and meat at the market while we were on the tour. I thought I would be totally safe eating beans, but little did I know it would make a mean come back later.

For the rest of the after noon we worked on re-patterning the Meredith dress. The neckline doesn’t fit right because it is too wide so it slides of the shoulders. Now that there are three more designers here it seems that everything is taking a lot more time because everyone has a different way of doing things and its hard to decide on things. Although today we probably worked at the pace Maria expects us to work at (before she was always so surprised we got things done so quickly) it is very frustrating. I think in the future it will be much more efficient if we split up into teams of two and all work on different things.

About mid afternoon, the Red Red decided to have its revenge. I started feeling sick and I knew this couldn’t be good. I ended up throwing up three times and the office and twice out of the taxi window on the way home. It is never fun being sick and even less fun when its super hot and there is no power. Ekaita made me a bed on the balcony so I laid out their for most of the evening where there was a breeze. Finally around 10pm, just in time for bed, I was starting to feel better.

Photo Update!

This is the little girl in the kids hoodie we made corrections to earlier this week

Goats are everywhere.. Pepo likes to make them mad.

This is my life...on the weekends.

These are the women who work in the quality control room at the office, Ekaita is on the far right she is the volunteer from oregon and the obruni in the back is Maria.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Since we didn’t have power last night, my fan didn’t work. Since my fan didn’t work cover up all the other noise, I woke up very early to the roaster this morning. That is definitely one thing I could do without.

The plan for the day was to do our laundry in the morning and then hang our by pool at the Elmina Beach Resort for the rest of the day, however, that is not the way things happened. When we woke up it was cloudy like it was going to rain so we decided to hold off on doing laundry, as there would be nowhere to hang our clean clothes to dry if it was raining.

Instead, we ate breakfast and sat on the porch upstairs to read. Ekaieta told us Ellen, the woman who takes care of the house, was going to church and asked if we wanted to go, so we went.

We went to the Methodist church of Elmina and Ellen read scripture. It was an adventure. Most of the service was in Fanti so it reminded me of trying to watch church on the Spanish channel at home, I didn’t understand any of it. At the end, they did do a 5-minute overview of everything they had been talking about for the past 3 hours, which was very nice.

During the service they have multiple offerings where you go up and place money into this bucket in the center of the room. Not thinking, I put my money in the bucket using my left hand. Later, ekaeta reminded me of the left hand rule, and how many people could have found that offensive. I’m hoping they will forgive me because I am a foreigner.

They also play very festive music and are a lot more animated during their services. Church here is a lot more like a big party. During the service they played “Holy Holy Holy”, which was awesome because I know how it sounds in English and so it was cool to hear it in Fanti. They worship a lot differently then we do in the U.S In the middle of the service everyone stands up and started dancing and at one point we were all in a conga line dancing around the room.

After we got back from church we were informed that we needed to attend a funeral next door. The man who lived next door past away recently and because the doctors here are not as educated they are not sure why. It was sad because his wife is left to take care of their two young kids. The funeral overall was very confusing. When we got there we said hello to the family and then we sat around for a few minutes, then they gave us a bag of food, and then we left.

After the funeral 5 more volunteers arrived in Cape Coast. It’s nice to have more people around, but should make simple tasks, like getting a cab in the morning very interesting. While they settled in Sarah and I walked across the street to the Elmina Beach Resort and hung out by the pool. They let us buy a pass for 20 cedis for 2 months and now we can go there and use the pool, the gym, and the Internet. its an awesome deal!

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Today the weather was beautiful. Sara, Maria, Pepo (Maria’s huge dog that all the Ghanaians are afraid of), and I went to the Brenu beach. Maria has a “special” taxi driver who will take us to the beach and pick us up when we’re ready to come home. Brenu beach is about a 15 min. taxi drive from the house, and it cost 6 Ghana Cedis to get there, but it was worth every peswas. J

When we got to the beach there was a restaurant and private tiki huts with tables under them. Walking past the restaurant there were palm trees everywhere. It was beautiful. I honestly feel like we had been warped into another dimension because everything was so nice and it was so different then Cape Coast. They even put hammocks up for us. We spent the day lying in the sun, getting knocked around by the waves, and reading in hammocks. It was a great start to the weekend.

After a day in the sun we came home showered and got ready for dinner. We went to Elis for dinner, which we’ve done every night since we’ve been in Elmina. For dinner, Eli made macaroni and cheese, and even though it may seem impossible, it was better then velveta. This was by far the best macaroni and cheese I have ever had and come to find out it was made from laughing cow cheese and some spices. Eli is an amazing cook and it is really too bad that we are her only customers. Cheese is very hard to come by in Ghana. It just amazes me how good it was when she had such little resources to work with.

During dinner the power went out. Its funny because I’m still not used to such sudden power shortages and I'm still caught of guard where the people who live here keep going on with things like nothing has changed. Eli lit candles and we finished our dinner by candlelight.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

This morning it was raining; Maria said that rainy season is starting. I didn’t pack an umbrella, even though my mom told me I should, so by the time I got to work I was soaking wet, but it was kind of refreshing to be wet cause then I wasn’t so hot. On the other hand, people around me probably weren’t so please because considering the showering conditions I probably smelled like a wet dog. The rainy weather made the temperature today cooler overall. It was nice to not be drenched in sweat all day. I hope I start adjusting to the heat soon.

Our first task for the day was to make changes on a pattern for a dog hat. They were having issues with fit, the small hat was too big for small dogs and the medium hat was too small for medium dogs. We also made changes to the length of the brim. We thought that making it shorter would save on material costs and would look better. We also had them put a piece of interfacing, or stiff as they call it, into the top of the hat to make it stand up better. Hopefully these changes will work.

Next we looked at the sizing chart and made comparisons between the sizing charts and the measurements of the actual products. Maria gave us a spreadsheet with a lot of the garments already measured, but we found that a lot of the measurements weren’t accurate so we re-did them all and started making a standardized way of measuring products for the future.

The hoodie that we tried fixing came back today. I was really surprise at how quick the turn around was. We didn’t finish the pattern until afternoon yesterday and we had it back finished by midmorning today. It seems that even though they are not technologically advanced they have good communication. It amazes me that everyone has cell phones here. No matter what their situation, their family of 15 may live in a shack the size of my bedroom, but they all have cell phones. After analyzing the hoodie and trying it on some kids to see how it fits on kids of different ages we decided the fit was much better, but the sleeves on the size 2-4 were still long so we will have to fix that tomorrow.

After work we went to Malcom, I would consider this store to be a Ghanaian version of Wal-Mart. You can buy dishes, TVs, food, and pretty much anything else. I bought oatmeal and brown sugar to eat for breakfast.

For dinner we went to Eli’s. It’s a “restaurant” that’s next door so we can walk there. Its not a typical restaurant as you would think of in the U.S in the sense that the people who live in the house are her only customers. I think it will be nice for her when the house fills up and more of us are going to eat there. For now, there are only three of us. Her cooking is amazing and I feel safe eating her food. A lot of food I am nervous to eat after going to the market and seeing where it comes from. Also, they don’t really have refrigerators so there is no way to keep things fresh for long periods of time and I know that Eli goes to the market everyday. Today we had Red Red for dinner. Red Red is a traditional Ghanaian dish made with beans and fried plantain.

People here actually carry things on their head. I cant imagine having something so heavy on my head and many people can just balance it without using their hands at all.

The ocean is so close beautiful. It blows my mind that Ghanians don't swim for fun, how can they resist?

Global Momas is well known in cape coast there are signs advertising fair trade throughout the city. This sign is advertising a batik workshop people can do to learn about the process of batiking.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

We arrived in Cape Coast at dusk last night. The ride was bumpy to say the least. The van we rode in was on its way back to Cape Coast after picking up calico (Raw Fabric) for Global Momas earlier in the morning. We picked up many other Ghanaians who were also traveling to Cape Coast along the way. At one point there were 13 people in what would be considered an 8-passenger van in the U.S It was definitely an adventure.

When we arrived at the office today George, a Ghanaian who works for Global Momas, took Sarah and I on a tour of the city. He was very helpful and knew a lot about the history of Cape Coast. The only problem was, it was difficult to understand him through his accent.

On our tour we went to the market. The markets here are very different from stores we have in the U.S. It is very intimidating because there are so many people everywhere. There are no sidewalks here so people just walk in the streets with cars whizzing by. They also have very few foods I recognize and everything is left out in the heat all day because they have limited refrigeration systems, It is very nerve wreaking as a first timer, but I’m sure over the next couple months I will become familiar with the market.

After our tour we returned to the office. Maria, the office manager in the Cape Coast office gave us a brief orientation about things to expect as far as the electricity going out and other technicalities. We also talked about some up coming projects she expected us to take on in the near future. Next, Maria gave us a tour around the office, which consists of three rooms, the main office where she works, the quality control room, and the room where the calico is stored, which is also where we will be most of the time.

We then met with Dorcas who is the quality control manager. She took us through the basic steps of what she does on a day-to-day basis. There are approximately 7 people who work with Dorcas in quality control. They check the materials that come in from the batiking to maker sure they are free of flaws. They also check the finished garments after they are returned from the seamstress in order to ensure there are no mistakes.

After learning about quality control Maria told informed us of our first project which was to resize the kids hoodie. We worked on this for most of the afternoon. When we finished the hoodie we went back to the main office and the power went out. Maria informed us that this happens often and they are never informed of when it will happen or when it will come back on. The power did not come back on for the remainder of the workday.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Today was spent mostly getting familiar with my surroundings as well as getting to know the different people who are in charge of Global Momas.

Sarah and I spent the morning in Accra getting acquainted with the city and culture here. Valerie who is head of finances for Global Momas and works in the Accra office showed us around the city, took us to a restaurant for lunch and showed us where we could change our money from U.S. dollars to Ghanaian Cedis. She was very helpful and inspired us to be more knowledgeable about the culture and people here.

While in Accra, we visited small street shops and other stores to do trend research. It is important for us to have an idea of what is currently in the market here. Most of the traditional garments found in Accra are similar to those at the Global Momas store; however, they are not produced with such quality fabrics and are probably not handmade.

We also visited the Global Momas store in Accra and looked at the products they are currently offering. The Accra store sells many of the same merchandise that is sold on the Global Momas website. The store usually receives most of the garments that are slightly defected or are samples in order to prevent waste.

The women who is in charge of merchandising at the Accra store talked with us in order to give us a better understanding of what was working, from a sales aspect, and what was not. She informed us of different issues she was having with different products so that we would have a better understanding of what changes to make when we get to Cape Coast. She said different garments sell better based on the print and color of design. There were also a few garments that are having issues with fit. That is something else that we can take into consideration when making changes while in Cape Coast.

A van is coming to pick us up in a few hours and take us to the house in Cape Coast. They said it is a three-hour drive by van. It will be nice to get settled in to our new home.