I’m sitting in my hotel room in the town of Sohag watching the colors of the city on the other side of the Nile change with the setting sun.

We met with Akhmim Textiles in the town of Akhmim, just outside of the town of Sohag. They are doing great work thanks largely to the dedication and brains of an older gentleman named Anwar.  Just as in Qena, the weaving tradition dates back to the time of the Pharoahs. Anwar learned how to weave from as a child or as he said “from the moment his mother delivered him underneath the loom.”

Anwar knows every part of the operation from building the actual loom from wood to doing the actual weaving to selling the products. He’s a very impressive man and seems quite generous. He wants the business to grow to encompass more members of the community and also to help revive this fading art form, showing younger generations that weaving can provide a lucrative income. Akhmim has taken Sohag weaving to a new level – their looms are huge (and take a month to prepare before they can start the actual weaving but can make 200 to 300 meters of fabric that’s about 6 feet wide) and they’ve developed a rather efficient model.

Anwar is finishing up the construction on a new building where there will be 18 looms on one floor and the tailors and other workers on another level. Currently, they are using 8 looms in various locations around Sohag. They make very high quality fabric from the loom for table cloths, bedspreads, shirts and galabeas made with 100% Egyptian cotton and linen. They purchase their thread in Cairo and have it dyed there but with the new work space, they are also investigating how to dye the threads with natural dyes used from local plants and minerals. He showed us a book with fabric swatches along with the recipes for the different colors. I also asked him about organic cotton and he’s said he’s looked into it a bit and when I said there’s a growing market he seemed interested in researching it more.




Anwar prepared us a delicious lunch with homemade bread, tomato and cucumber salad, a tomato okra soup called bamshy (I’m slaughtering the spelling here), a spinach soup (molakeah), rice, duck, and pigeon (hamam). I’ve been a vegetarian for 11 years but today, because Anwar kept piling more and more pigeon and duck in front of me and insisting that I eat it (despite Amr explaining that I’m a vegetarian), I decided to eat a few bites. So I piled a bunch of other things in with it and ate it. My comment was “tastes like chicken” and everyone at the table said, “My, it really has been awhile since you’ve eaten meat.”

I’ve tried starting this posting about four times. I have wanted to write about the most important part of this trip: the visits with the different groups we’re visiting but time has slipped by. And now it’s past midnight  so who knows how far I’ll get. We are in Luxor right now, one of the top tourist destinations where the Valley of Kings is. It’s hot here – I think on average it’s getting up to at least 110 everyday (although not as hot as Aswan, closer to the border of Sudan, where we were yesterday). I have managed to upload the pictures from the visits so far which you can view in the online album of the trip here: http://www.partnersforjusttrade.org/ht/d/Gallery/pid/2860. So since Friday, we’ve visited seven groups: the Brass Group in Cairo, Rawya Group (glazed pottery), Fayoum Soap, Hosni Group (unglazed pottery) and Fayoum Baskets in the Al Fayoum oasis, Nubian Baskets in West Aswan and Naqada in Qena. I would love to write about all of these groups ...continue reading

June 19 On Wednesday in Cairo I met with the staff and members of the board of directors from Egyptian Hands (EH). EH does the development work (capacity building and trainings) with the producer groups involved in Fair Trade in Egypt. They work with over 3,500 producers across the country. They have a very different model than what we have worked with in Peru or Cameroon – EH is not involved in the sale and export of products but instead leave the export up to a different organization. They used to work closely with Egypt Crafts Center, a for-profit, Fair Trade organization and member of the World Fair Trade Organization (formerly known as IFAT), as the marketing, sales and export arm of the Fair Trade operation. As far as I understand, because of differences they recently stopped working with ECC and are looking to a different company, Yadawee, to export the Fair Trade products. Yadawee has worked exporting artisan products for quite some time but has only recently begun to be ...continue reading

The last time I posted to this blog, I was sitting in the dark in Lima, Peru reflecting on the Bob Dylan song, "Watching the River Flow." As I was just mapping out on the cities I'll be visiting on my trip to Egypt, I realized that I literally will be watching the river flow as every single city that I'll be visiting sits on the Nile River. In preparing for my trip, I've learned a few things about the Nile... Ancient Egyptians simply called it iteru or the river. Rainfall in east and central Africa ensured that the Nile rose each summer. When the surge of water that flooded the valley retreated as the rains ceased, a layer of rich silt was left behind. Egyptians planted seed on this fertile land and the Nile became the main source of life and growth for the region. Interestingly enough, for quite some time even the taxation rate rose and fell with the water level of the river. The Nile is generally regarded as the longest river in the world (I'm not sure how a river can ...continue reading

I sit here reflecting on my trip in Peru as it comes to an end and it seems as though I have been here much longer than a month. I am sitting in the dark (the electricity went out) which seems appropriate as I’m feeling in a pensive mood.   The initial thought that comes to my mind is that I am so glad that I work for an organization that has such a close relationship with its artisans. Fair Trade is becoming a more common term and perhaps these days can even be found in the dictionary. But especially for crafts, it still remains a variable concept that can be quite relative for each situation/country/craft. Third party verification exists but unfortunately due to its small scope (mainly because of limited budgets and size) can only validate and support producer organizations to a certain extent. Therefore, the consumer really must rely on the word of the intermediaries who interact with the producers to know that the product they are ...continue reading

I am sitting with my laptop under 5 layers of blankets trying to stay warm. Huancavelica is a town even higher up in the Andes than Huancayo (13,000 feet) and without heat it feels quite chilly at night.   Since the last time I wrote we have visited various artisan groups living in beautiful places. A few days ago we visited 2 groups outside of Huancayo, La Esperanza and another whose name is in Quechua which I’m still trying to figure out. We have sold several items from La Esperanza . They are talented weavers using a floor loom but have not yet found the right design to use for export products. The women are all related somehow (something BOH and PJT try to discourage when working with groups because we prefer but that the economic development reach the wider community, but it can become difficult when working in small pueblos, where in many cases most of the pueblo is related) and all know how to spin their own wool, dye their fabric, and ...continue reading

A long and beautiful bus ride from Lima on Saturday brought me up nearly 11,000 feet to the town of Huancayo. I was lucky enough to sit in the front seat next to the bus driver and take in the incredibly idyllic countryside (but unlucky enough to have to endure the same whiny Huancayan cd blasting the entire way). The terrain quickly changes from the parched, sweltering climate of the coast to the rainy and lush landscape of the Andes. The straight line on the google map shows the distance to be only 120 miles but the road was anything but straight and the trip took 8 hours, passing through mining town after mining town (including the infamous La Oroya whose city is the site of Doe Run’s poly- metallic smelter. It has been named in the top 20 of most polluted cities in the world. According to the Blacksmith Institute , 35,000 have been potentially affected by the pollutants from the mine including lead, copper, zinc, and sulfur dioxide. 99% of children ...continue reading

I should be in Huancayo right now but a bout with giardia has kept me an extra day in Lima. (Giardia is Dr. Carrie’s diagnosis…I took medicine and already feel the party in my stomach coming to an end.) On Thursday we visited 2 groups that are quite advanced, Grupo Mana and Kuichi. Grupo Mana has been together since 2000 and is one of the first groups that BOH started working with. The group has seen some members come and go over but right now they have 5 members who range in age from 22 to 56. They are mothers and grandmothers who have learned to sew and make colorful products using the traditional manta from Huancavelica. They have worked with other groups in the past to fill large orders including an order several years back of a few thousand conference bags. I was only able to meet two members and one was Berta, the current featured artisan on our web site and the other is named Emilia. Both were the initial founders and are outgoing and full of ...continue reading

Since I last wrote, I have visited 4 groups: Emady, Manos del Rosario, Jupa, and Ima Sumacc and have inhaled a lot of pollution. I wish I had a map of Lima to show how many different roads we have traversed. Lima is feeling bigger and bigger by the day. And my teeth are decaying by the minute because each artisan group is kind enough to give us Inka Cola or some other sort of sugar saturated, caffeinated drink. And please forgive my English as I am not one of those people that can switch back and forth from one language to another…instead as one language improves, the other deteriorates...   Of all of the groups we have visited, Emady is the most advanced and the oldest member of Bridge of Hope. Emady specializes in producing products that have a touch of Shipibo, an intricately decorated cloth from the northeastern jungles of Peru, but they also use fabrics from other parts of Peru. Dionisia Ramos started the group nearly 7 years ago and from ...continue reading

Early mornings and late nights spent working and trampsing around Lima (in taxis driven by insane drivers of course) have kept me busy since my arrival to Peru. Today, Maribel, Jorge, and I made our first visits to see two artisan groups in San Juan de Lurigancho, one of the poorest parts of Lima.   The first group we visited, named Munay Rumi - quechua for “pretty stone” - is a group of jewelers. Munay Rumi is a very interesting artisan group in the sense that it consists of three women and one man, normally jewelers in Peru are men and it is rare to find a man willing to be outnumbered by women. The group met while working at a factory making cheap wire jewelry. After working there many years - nearly a decade for some - one of the artisans, named Eva (who we weren’t able to meet today), asked the others if they wanted to start their own business. They did and continued to make the cheap wire jewelry (to be honest, I can’t picture the style ...continue reading

My name is Carrie Hawthorne and I am PJT's executive director. I'll be traveling in Peru from January 22 - February 22 to work with artisans on product design and development as well as spend time getting to know all of the artisans whose beautiful products we sell. I have been working with PJT since April and this will be my first time meeting the artisans and the wonderful staff we work with in Lima, Bridge of Hope . When I'm able to access the internet I'll be posting to this blog to share the stories - both the challenges and accomplishments - of my travels.  Here's a map of where I'll be traveling (the map is interactive so you can click on the different markers to see what artisan groups are in each city and when I'll be traveling where and unfortunately - the roads are not nearly that straight!!). View Larger Map One of the many challenges of working in Fair Trade crafts is developing new products. Fair Trade is fundamentally about ...continue reading