Ashirwad

A slow drive through congested Kolkata suburbs brought us to a peaceful village which is home to Margaret Devadason who runs a small group called Ashirwad. They make a small number of Christmas ornaments for Villages. There are 12 women who work in their homes and gather once a week for product finishing, quality control and packaging. They obviously have a good time when they're together as they were laughing and having a great time in the back room of Margaret's very pleasant house. While we were there they were working on blue/white star garlands for Villages US as well as some interesting boxes decorated with broken glass bangles which are ubiquitous here.

We had another good lunch including puris (which we hadn't had yet) and assorted curries. Our driver found a faster route back to the hotel and now we're planning a last few hours of shopping / resting / attempting to cram everything into seriously overloaded suitcases, in preparation for a very early morning tomorrow. We have to leave the hotel around 4:45am for a 7am flight to Delhi, where we'll be meeting with people from Noah's Ark in the afternoon.