village life

the making of the charcoal. This version uses sausage fruit, which hangs from trees, and corn husk charcoal.  Those are earrings that the people in the village made using cornhusks.  Both of these projects are based on last years interaction with the university students and existing programs here.

And early morning Lilongwe, where all the stores have a painting of what is inside the store.

 Old brake sign in a more sketchy part of a very sketchy town.  This is the finished charcoal.

some of my favorite vegetables. We are working on corn husk dolls, as a way to for the villages to make money.  They are very poor, and subject to recurring droughts as part of a changing climate. At first I wanted to connect to authentic Malawi traditions of craft, but after a few visits to crafts markets I learned that just about everything being sold was derivative of some other African culture molded into  the form of a souvenir.   Once I let go of authenticity, I realized what we really need to make are really cool dolls.  I was thinking voodoo dolls, richly decorated (voodoo is from the Caribbean, then to New Orleans, but is originally from West Africa)

  But I can’t call them that, and making the nativity scenes might be beyond my technical expertise with corn husks. So my second insight was to make Malawi Magic Dolls, create a little card to go with them that explains what they are, which could be a Malawi legend or maybe I could make up a legend...souvenirs always bring up questions of culture and legends and stories. 

Street vendors, who can be extremely persistent, so far I bought a wooden chess set, so we could all play and a small wooden ring.