Beads, Beads, and More Beads

Thursday was girls day out. Stacy and I took a taxi into Tema where we met up with one of Stacy's friends, Angie. Angie married a Ghanaian five years ago and they are missionaries here. She has been learning how to make bead jewelery and told us that she could show us the ropes and help give us designs for our jewelery that our 7 Continents ladies will be making.

Before we left, Stacy and I sat down and brainstormed ideas for the jewelery. We came up with specific words for each design and a color that matches that design. Each necklace will probably differ a bit in the beads that we use, but for the most part, each necklace will be given a design name, like our Strength necklace will use red beads, and our Empower necklace will be turquoise. Those are just a few of the ideas that we came up with. We were also talking about putting together a 7 Continents bracelet that included a prayer guide of how one could pray for single women, human trafficking, and orphans in our 7 continents (well...minus Antarctica--we don't think we will find many facts about a continent where no body lives!).

In any case, with our ideas swirling around in our heads, we headed out to Accra. Angie has lived here for a long time and it was fun talking to her. She has a serious Ghanaian accent! It's kind of funny to hear such a strong accent on a white girl! In any case, the taxi driver that we took had said she knew where the market was, but really, he only knew the general location. We had to stop and ask and ask and ask and finally, we found the place. Apparently, in November, the market had burned down, so there weren't as many beads as there used to be. All of the sellers had to start over. So crazy! But in any case, there were a lot more beads than I knew about before!

We first started with our small beads. There were bags and bags of these small beads with so many different colors. We chose a bunch of different bags and hope that we can use them to liven up our jewelery and really make them come to life. The beads that we picked next were the bigger beads, some that we'd use to really accent our pieces. This was harder because we didn't really have a picture of what we wanted to do, we only had some colors in mind. So, we went around picking pieces that matched our colors and in the end, some of them, we're really happy with, and some--not so much. But we chose a lot of beads and we'll see what comes out of them!

After the market, we went to Champs at the Paloma Hotel there in Accra. We learned about this place from the Australian bike riders. They serve MEXICAN food there! Yummmmmmm!! I had enchiladas and though they're not exactly the same as when I get the authentic version in Cali, they were pretty delicious!

Yesterday, Stacy and I brought out the beads again to look over them all. We were pretty happy with our purchases. We'll see what we can do with them all. It was fun to just sit and chat about life, about memories, about beads, and possibilities! Loved it!

This break, so far, has turned out to be a little busy, but I'm loving getting to rest a little in the mornings (I'm up by 6 or 6:30 with Edwin--but then, I don't have to be outside at any time to get my breakfast, so I just take it easy, do my quiet time, read, all kinds of things!). And Katie will come in TOMORROW, so then, I get to show her around my life here.

Next week, I want to take some of the kids to the school in the morning to work on different things. Some of them are pretty behind in their curriculum, so I want to get them caught up on things before our next term. We'll see how much actually happens. And then, I'll spend the afternoons with Katie, working on stuff for the summer camp. The second week that she's here, we're planning on doing a feed here in Doryumu and we'll maybe go tour around a bit. We'll see what happens! Can't wait for her to come!

WAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO