We BEAD!

Honestly, every day here keeps getting better and better. This is the bead project I vaguely mentioned in my last post. These are literally strips of paper rolled up and glued. To make them more bead like you put them in varish which makes them hard and shiny and you string them on a string to create a necklace!

This is Annette. While beading with her I learned she is a single mother of 4 children from the ages of 14 to the little guy in her lap who is 2 I believe. She said her husband left her for another wife in another village and she hasn't seen him for a couple of years. Making this necklace with her was such a surreal experience. I asked her if she likes being a mom and she responded that it is very hard work but she does it because she loves her children. 

These women live in a slum which is poorest of the poor in Uganda, or I would say anywhere in general. They live in mud huts with straw roofs and dirt floors. They live on 1,000 shillings a day. (less than 50 cents) I think I talked about them in a couple posts back when we came to the Namatala Slum for the first time. Regardless of their conditions they are happy. The way they look at life I realized since I've been here is that they are just grateful for what they do have. Every little thing. They are super religious and give thanks to God for everything. The people of the Namatala Slum with an emphasis on these women are so inspiring. They humble me so much.

Modeling the Annette necklace.

She chose her design and everything, I basically just asissted her. How cute is she?!

 These are the women we are working with for this project and their designs. We plan on making many of these necklaces in different colors (these are just the templets to see if they would actually work, which they obviously did) and Rebecca and Alexis who are the leaders of the project are in the process of creating a website/business to sell them online! We are really excited about it. They are hoping to get the site up and running before we leave so if you are interested you can buy one or two or as many as you want. The money goes to these women to help them provide for their families. It is an amazing project and I feel so privileged to be working with these women this summer.