Two weeks in...

ebony leopard hooks from Malawi

brooches from 'a life of sundays'

ebony charms and glass beads

chitenje stuffed heart decorations

phone wire chokers

chitenje cloth pencil/makeup/sunglasses bags

porcupine quill bracelets from Malawi (found quills, no porcupines killed in the making of these bracelets!)

lacy nightie and button necklace made by women in empowerment group

some crafts made by the Waldorf school mothers

love all the colours and patterns

Belinda's bags and Malawian sling bags

clothes on rails at last!

Not very good at this updating, it seems, but we have been open two weeks and it is so lovely to have that space to work in and hang our finds in. About 4 people a day wander in, many of them mothers from the Waldorf school down the track, and usually everyone finds something to buy.
Here are some pics of what we have inside...

Opening!

We opened yesterday!
We opened shop - and it was a completely lovely day! Lots of wonderful women and dear friends arrived and shopped and drank tea and sat in the garden and enjoyed themselves - and Belinda and I loved every minute!
All the comments were so positive and it felt like a day full of love and laughter and good friends (and gorgeous clothes too!)
And we made some money too, which is the rent covered at least for the next few months. Yay!
(But moral dilemma: should one really SELL things to your friends? It would be much better to be able to give the clothes away. But sadly, that is for the more idle rich, and this old bat needs to make a bean. So be it. And when I see what clothes in real shops cost, I am amazed anyone manages to ever buy anything new! I think maybe we even sell our things too cheap - but then that way all the lovely women who came can afford to buy them, and to buy a little pile too.)

The work before opening

We've done it! Our shop is ready: it's all painted white inside, the floors and windows are clean and sparkly, the garden is tended and replanted and watered, the rubbish is all gone and the lawn mowed, the rails are bought, painted and hung with fabulous garments, the crates are stacked as a shelf unit and the shelves are full of treasures from Malawi, we have a white desk each and a cupbard full of the crafts that mothers at the Imhoff Waldorf School have made.
We are looking good!

But gosh - our shop premises are like a big fishing net that traps all the rubbish blown from the 'burb over the road in the Cape's famous South Easterly wind. Every morning we arrive and have to do a rubbish collection before we can open. So be it. I am going to make myself one of those wire spikes so that I don't have to grope under rocks - scared I am going to grope a puffadder one day - the perils of shop owning on a farm in the Cape!

Christmas in Malawi

Hello all
Hope you all had a very merry Christmas full of joy and love and all things nice.
We did, in a low key sort of a fashion, here on the lake edge. Had a delicious Christmas eve dinner at Liinu's (the Finn) house. Much planning went into it (on her part I fear, I just followed orders and sent shopping lists with the drivers when they were going to the city). We asked one of the chefs who was off, Guy, to cook for us and he cooked up a storm all day - what a calm and capable chap he was. I was very relieved to have nothing to do with that side of things, but for Liinu it is a big part of the celebration to bustle about and cook and decorate. I suppose it is for us too, but for myself, it's my least favourite part and if I can leave it to others, I fear I am only too happy. Not a single Nigella cell in this frame...
But I provided Port for Glogg (! Finnish gluwein, isn't that a lovely name?) and Amarula for the Amarula Carrot cake we ate for dessert, and Brie and Camembert all the way from home, and crackers from Woollies - so I felt I did a small bit. I also provided the children who are essential for a Christmas spirit! " Where are the presents? When can we open the presents? Is it time? Is it time???"
Anyway, it was a lovely evening.
The next day Bush was mystified as to why he felt nauseous... lots of beer and rich food perhaps? But apparently, in his favour, sometimes the beers are not so good at Christmas time here as the brewery is working overtime. Beer does seem to be a huge factor in the celebration for Malawian men - who seem to stay up all night drinking it and then stagger along the beach the next day looking bleary and beery. But, unlike home, noone seems to get aggressive and horrible, they all just stay benign and cheerful.
Then hoards of children in their best clothes also run up and down the beach asking for sweets. We were prepared with 2 huge bags but it was a bunfight of snatching and grabbing and I felt like a terrible colonial because the only way to distribute evenly was to throw handfuls. Aaargh - the old prototype. But what else to do? Certainly noone was going to line up!
My own offspring were finished by the late night before, and so they were lolling about like little full sloths after eating all their Christmas chocolate interspersed with mangoes by their anxious mother.
Bush took to his bed at every opportunity and I drifted about from hammock to couch and dealt with the few office tasks of the day. The main thing was to send the local choir out to sing for guests on Mumbo. They went down a treat and managed to also sell 9 of their CD's which was nice.
Otherwise I haven't actually set foot off the property since I got here - other than to go to the Monkey Bay market twice. Can't face the village full of tourists and the heat out there. Bit antisocial and no-one really expecting me to socialise so I can give in to my more misanthropic self.
Kayak Africa is a mini ecosystem. There is a whole forest canopy happening here - mainly a huge tamarind tree which over-arches almost the whole property. It's about 10 degrees cooler here and if you lie in the hammock outside you can see all sorts of birdlife going on. Mainly Heuglins robins bringing up a baby who got lost in our bathroom this morning but found his way out again without mishap.
Off to Mangochi metropolis in the morning to shop for chitenjes and go to the even bigger 2nd hand market at a village en route. Terribly exciting to get to Pep stores these days too!
After all that festive stuff, I have been taking a quiet back seat while I gather together the things I love that are made or sold here to stock the new shop that Belinda and I are opening in February. I have been 2nd hand shopping in the markets with a fervour, and I have commissioned the carvers for special things and I have bought lucky bean necklaces and phone wire chokers and ebony pendants and chitenje cloth clothing and special tea and all sorts of delights from tropical Aahfricah. I only hope now that we get some customers in our shop who will also love these things!
I think I am going to just love having a space in which to hang all the clothes I have gathered over the years and also to have a little studio space (a tiny table) on which to put my laptop or my sewing machine or my drawing book or even just my notebook of lists and ideas....
So exciting to have a new project to get excited about!