Friday Craft Market

In my last post I mentioned how on Friday we went to the craft market in Kampala and how crazy and fun it was! I also said I wanted to share a little more about it, so here it goes. First, a little background on kind of the reasons behind going, since you can pretty much find everything that we saw there here in Jinja. This sounds pretty self explanatory, but the primary reason is because you can get everything for cheaper, especially when you buy a lot of something. I didn't come to Uganda with the intention of doing this, but coming home from market I came home, not only with Christmas presents for lots of people in my life, but also with a lot of stuff that I want to sell. Since being here I have heard from other volunteers who have left or just other stories in general of people taking home a lot of the beaded necklaces and homemade bags to sell to people in the States. Sometimes people are fundraising for themselves, in order to raise money to come back, and then others, just to raise money for things here. Upon hearing these stories, I wanted to do this too. Not only as a way to give back to Ekisa, and help them start off the this next year, but just to be able to raise awareness about what I've been doing here, and to bring Africa a little closer to people back at home!

With all of that said, I bought 70 necklaces (the paper beaded ones) in a ton of colors and styles, and 23 cross-body bags that are also in a ton of colors and patterns, that I will be selling when I get home - and all of the money will come right back here to Ekisa! I'm excited about this because I get home November 30th, so how perfect these will be for Christmas presents! I'm not really trying to do a sales pitch, though I guess this kind of is, but I would love everyone's support to give back to a place that God so intentionally placed in my life! I am going to try to get a couple pictures up on Facebook of the necklaces and bags so you have an idea of what they look like, but if you see something you like, let me know and I would love to get more or save them for you! Please also feel free to email me if you have any questions! Brb9p@virginia.edu