Tuesday, April 14 Nairobi, Kenya

I am really writing this entry, not in facebook and having Randy cut and paste it...hooray, the internet is working tonight. Maybe I'll even get some more pictures posted for all of you if it doesn't get too late!!
I had a really busy day today, starting with breakfast at 7:30 here at the guest house. We had PANCAKES!! I then grabbed a quick shower and was picked up by my taxi to get over to Amani. I ordered my latte (sorry Adrienne, no vanilla :( ), then headed upstairs to MY desk. I went over a few things with the administrator then went on up to the top floor for prayer time at 9:30. The ladies pray in English and Swahili and sing so beautifully, it doesn't matter what language it is! Then it was time for work...and did we ever!! We had one Burda pattern to share so each lady was given a large sheet of brown paper and took one piece of the pattern. We went over which size each lady would be. The pattern was multi-sized with multiple cutting lines. Some of the ladies needed to use more than one cutting line at different points in the pattern. Girls, you all know what I mean! The tables they work on are padded with oilcloth covers, so they just pin through the tissue pattern and the brown paper into the table. Then they used tracing wheels to trace over their size line on the pattern. They then removed the tissue pattern and drew with marker over where the tracing wheel had marked. Then they cut the brown paper out. They had to also mark all the notches, dots and grain lines with a ruler. After everybody had a chance to cut out all of the pattern pieces, they started laying it all out again on their fabric. This was after lunchtime. I had a delicious salad in the garden and spent the time with Janet, one of the ladies who has been assigned to be my hostess. I also stuck my head in the shop while my lunch was being made to see if anything was new. I'm still trying to figure out if I can find room to bring a quilt home, they are so pretty. After lunch we were going gangbusters trying to get all the jackets cut out which involved not only pinning the brown paper to the fabric but then measuring the seam allowance of 5/8" all the way around and marking it with chalk before cutting. The pattern did not include the seam allowance!! Mary Vassar, you would not have survived this, I promise you!! By 4 o'clock we were all ready to call it quits but some of the ladies were hanging in there to finish before leaving. Then Pat, the other helper and I realized we didn't know how they were going to transfer their markings tomorrow. There was no dressmaker's carbon! So we ended the day with prayer and a praise song and she and I headed over to the nearby mall where I had spotted a fabric store (she didn't even know it was there) and I got some dressmaker's carbon for them to use with their tracing wheels tomorrow. You can pray for me because I am supposed to demonstrate making this jacket and there are welt pockets. I haven't made one in at least 20 years and I will have to make 2 of them and they have to be even! I brought my jacket home to cut out tonight! It was fun going down to the storeroom and getting to pick out whatever fabric I wanted!
Tomorrow I will be putting postcards in the mail to all of you. Hopefully they will get there before I get back. Let me know, who's is the first one to arrive!
Thanks for all of your prayer support. I know things wouldn't be going so smoothly otherwise!