Animals! Kenya!

While my mom was here we did a lot of shopping. Probably more than either of us had expected, but there is something that always feels so nice about getting things for other people! One morning, after breakfast we popped into a little kitchen shop to try and find some cookie cutters. (We were on a hunt for a reindeer, which ended up being harder to find than we thought!) The back of the shop had an area where I'm guessing they must do classes with a oven, etc and a long table. At the end of the table there was a couple with dozens of knit animals. We went up to look at them and ended up chatting with them for quite some time. They were from the Friends of Kenya Schools and Wildlife. All the animals were knit by women in Kenya and had tags with the name of the women who knit them and the school or group they were from.


They had almost every kind of animal imaginable and each one was so beautiful in its own way. Something about them made my mom and I both feel so good. The couple was so nice to talk to and you could tell they really love what they are doing and really love Kenya. It reminded me of Aimee Bessire, a professor I had at Maine College of Art. She teaches art history and I took both of her African art classes. One was about the royal arts and one was about the religious arts and they were probably the best art history classes I ever took. But I think the biggest reason was because you could always tell how passionate Aimee was about Africa. Everyone gets teachers who seem to really know their subject, but I feel like it's rare you get someone who makes you feel like they are sharing something they love with you.

Ok, well this is getting longer than I meant so I will just end it with a couple of the animals we got. We also got a horse, alpaca and pig, but my mom brought those back home for gifts.

Aren't they the greatest!? The two little guys are finger puppets and are going to be sent to Adam's nieces at some point. So cute!