Let the creativity begin!

Working without a translator was challenging. There weren't enough teachers to go around, especially because our students want to know everything there is to know and they wanted to know it today! How do you use crimps? What are these tools for? How do you make earrings? How do I put this (briolette) in a bracelet? What is this for? What is that for? What's a clasp? Can you show me how to put it on? Can you repeat that?

Except for the student pictured here, the older students have no literacy, so we can't use printed handouts--unless they explain everything in pictures. It takes some time and patience, but explaining by doing actually works.

It's encouraging to see that our group includes some children, five amazing teenage girls, and women ranging in age from 30- to 50-something. At the moment, we have women from Somalia, Sudan, and Iraq in our group, but it looks like we'll soon have women from Burma, too.

The only major glitch today surfaced when we realized we didn't have enough tools to go around. We had only one crimp tool and no chain-nose pliers. We barely had enough crimp tubes, either. Time to start scouring Ebay.