Beside myself...
...with excitement!I've been here just over a week and we have got so much done. It's been great. Archana (right)visited us and happily modelled her film star style Kurta Surwal and sold us some fresh corn. The ladies have done fabulously with the new 
designs and I think we may be able to tick most things off the list (They are so driven about this list you would not believe! Yes, well it was my list.) The faux amber for Paulette at Kazuri looks positively luscious and the pendants we are making in conjunction with Helen Breil are really coming on. A very different style for us and we are enjoying making them. By the way, this post really gets to the guts of what Samunnat is all about. And why I feel so humbled and lucky to be involved.Another thing I am excited about is my latest foray into medical tourism. The $20 crown from
several years ago is holding up nicely and I decided, as my warped glasses slid down my nose yet another time, to lash out and get a new pair here. Good ones. Expensive ones. Sturdy ones. With a vision test, blood pressure check, eye pressure test etc. And I did. But I did have to pay over $20 for the lot. Even with Kopila bargaining. Kicking me 
surreptitiously when I started to say I thought $20 a pair where the colour would not fade sounded fair enough. They'll arrive from Calcutta in three days.If I was a certain kind of girl I'd have taken some incredible photos of the others waiting in the line with me but I feel really uncomfortable about this and didn't. There was a group of 6 or 7 tall, skinny, dignified men from across the border wearing faded blue lunghis and threadbare white shirts. They walked up in a line and stood quietly waiting to see the optometrist. They almost looked like a border print!Then there was a woman in a hot pink sari heavily encrusted with gold sequins and thread. Her arms were heavy with red lacquer bangles and golden bracelets and I wondered what she wore for "good". There was the girl in purple and sunflower yellow kurta with mesmerising eyes the colour of glacial lakes telling me when to move up as our line snaked along. Not a line I minded waiting in one bit!The other thing I am very excited about is that the amazing Tory Hughes and I have finally got some definite dates for our event in September. I'll write more about this in the next post but for now let me say that our fabulous four day creative retreat: