After the Tour

We've all now gone our separate ways. 6 people should be home in Canada, 2 vacationing in Thailand, and 3 of us in various parts of England. I'm very much enjoying some peace and relaxation at my sister's house in rural Wiltshire.

I'm sure we'll all need some time to reflect on the tour and fully absorb everything that we saw and learned. There were many emotional moments that will no doubt affect us again as we look at our pictures, read the stories and give presentations to our fellow staff members, volunteers and customers. We'll all take different things with us, but I'm sure the experience will stay with us and enrich our individual roles within the Ten Thousand Villages organization.

I may be able to post more information in the coming weeks - there were some artisan interviews carried out in the last few days of the tour that have not yet been typed up. I'll post those with some images when I receive them. I may also come across some photographic gems as I sort through the hundreds/thousands of pictures.

For now, thanks for reading - it's been fun to do this despite the late nights and early mornings that it sometimes called for. Thanks especially to those who posted comments, or emailed them directly. And my most sincere thanks to my fellow learning tour participants - it was truly a pleasure to share the last 18 days with you. I hope this blog serves as a good reminder of the tour.

Ian Brown

Last Day of the Tour: Stone Carvers / Taj Mahal

The last day of the tour was a long one: about 5 hours on the bus from Delhi to Agra (and back again.) First we visited one of Tara's artisans, a group of stone carvers. We learned a little about how they work and saw the various stages of cutting, carving & polishing many of the products that we sell such as soapstone elephants and boxes with inlaid decoration.

A couple of pictures:

Cutting stone

Carving elephant bookends

Cutting thin wafers of stone for inlaid decoration on boxes

We then went to visit the Taj Mahal. Words can't do it justice, so here's a picture.

Pictures from Tara Projects / Delhi

Here are a few images from our visit to Tara, and sightseeing in Delhi...

Packaging necklaces

Lots of jewellery in Tara's excellent sample room

Rajasthani Musicians & Dancers

Learning Tour Participants, Tara artisans / employees, Musicians

Lotus Temple

The Red Fort

Vasumati Mistri - St Mary's (Ahmedabad)

Vasumati started working with St. Mary’s as an embroiderer in 1973. Vasumati lived with her husband and her mother in law. Vasumati’s husband was working in an iron factory. The family was barely making ends meet so she started working to provide a supplemental income to the family. Vasumati would go to St. Mary’s each week to pick up bundles consisting of stenciled cloth and colored threads. Vasumati would embroider the cloth at home while running the household.

Vasumati’s mother in law passed away and then a few years later, in 1990 Vasumati’s husband passed away as well. At this time Vasumati started working at St. Mary’s Center full time. Vasumati is now the person in charge of preparing the cloth and thread bundles for other women to pick up and take home to embroider. Vasumati has been able to receive a loan toward the purchase of her own home, and has since re-paid the loan. Vasumati has no children of her own but has nieces and nephews that will also benefit from her income.

Vasumati wants to continue working at the center as long as she is able. She is proud of her accomplishments. Having a job and her own income has given her great self esteem and empowerment. Since she is now alone the connection with others at the center mean a lot her. Being at St. Mary’s makes her very happy.

Interview by Shirley

More pictures from St Mary's and Ahmedabad:

Dancers preparing to perform for us

And yet another photogenic kid...

Step Well

Gandhi's room at the Ashram

Tara Projects / Delhi

A change to the schedule saw us spending today in Delhi, with the trip to Agra now happening on Monday.

We spent the day with Tara projects - learning a lot about their artisans, and being very impressed by the political and social development work that they do. We all thoroughly enjoyed music and dance by some Rajasthani performers, then we were treated to pizza, noodles, French fries and diet Coke for lunch!

We then set off on a brief tour of the sights of Delhi, seeing the Baha'i Lotus Temple, a Hare Krishna temple, the Red Fort, Delhi Gate and India Gate.

An early supper was followed by a chance for us to spend some final time together as a group, reflecting on our experiences over the last 16 days. Now there are some frantic struggles going on as we attempt to cram everything into our suitcases ... then we'll all be early to bed.

At 5am (the reason this is so brief - I need to go to bed!) we'll be on the road to Agra to visit some stone carvers who work with Tara Projects, and to visit the Taj Mahal. It will be a long day, but a chance for those who haven't been there before to visit one of the world's most famous buildings. Unfortunately Carell and Shirley won't be going with us as they have an earlier flight (to Bangkok) than the rest of us and didn't want to risk being late back ... newspaper reports this weekend suggest getting to the airport here 6 hours before your flight time as the various security and check-in lines are so bad....

After a long day on the bus we'll have a long night on the plane before heading our various separate ways - some (me included) are staying in England for a while, others head straight back to Canada.

I'll find time to post more updates and pictures when I'm in England in the middle of the week.