Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Bwari Pottery Village

We spent a Saturday afternoon in Bwari visiting the Pottery Village. The following pictures are what one might see on a typical Nigerian drive. example #1: a green taxi van in the ditch, despite their flawless driving (do you sense the sarcasm?)example #2: another road block, and a foreigner experiencing joy as a resultexample #3: grazing cattle (this is why we do NOT eat beef in this country) example #4: people remodeling their homes and recycling the contents, from top to bottom example #5: anything can be carried on the back of a chinacycleexample#6: the wonderful infrastructure And at last we arrive at Bwari Pottery Village... after 49 kilometers of fun from our homeAll of the manufacturing of the stoneware products takes place here, from the raw clay being dumped off of the truck to the sieving, drying, sculpting, throwing, firing, glazing, and selling. Chris and Lauren making clay holds for their new climbing gym they are building in their living room. I needed help centering and compressing the clay, so Stephen the owner was there to assist. These are the final products that I made. It was the first time I worked on a wheel since 9th grade.