Summer Sale At A Better Footprint!

Well, now Miranda and Kyle are back from Africa! We're making room for all of the new treasures, including our new favorite item, the recycled can cars!! To help us clear out some inventory and make room for the new, we've got everything on sale in the online store!


The recycled can cars are often made from bug spray cans, which are used to treat mosquito nets. Sleeping under a treated net helps save children as well as pregnant mothers from contracting malaria. Gambia is one of the countries afflicted by high rates of malaria. Your purchase of these recycled items, arriving soon, helps manage the waste from treating these nets and supports creative arts and employment for Gambian artists at the Brikama Craft Market.

We're also extending our summer sale for wholesale customers. We're offering more than 15 fair trade items at heavily discounted prices for retail and gift shop owners interested in selling our fairly traded products. Check back often for updates and new products - you'll see them online before we get our new catalog designed!!

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It's Mango Season in Gambia!

Greetings from the field! Kyle and Miranda are certainly enjoying mango season in The Gambia...in fact, it's even dangerous to sit under the mango tree, as they are dropping from very tall heights! Our friends here tell us that even cows die sometimes from getting hit by a mango. What a way to go...

Anyway, we've been enjoying weather in the upper 90s (plus humidity), delivering shoes to needy school children, touring the new Brikama Craft Market, where each carver/finisher has a locked door on their shop and the potential for electricity in the future. They are working on some new creations for us made from scrap wood, recycled bottle caps and soda cans, handmade recycled paper, and other things.

Tomorrow, we leave for Njau, in the upper provinces, where women have now trained residents in three neighboring villages how to recycle plastic bags. We are very happy to see that production is increasing because this means that the clean up of Gambia is also increasing. We are also very excited to see the progress of the women in terms of savings accounts and the raised standard of living due to the wider market for their fair trade purses. They will also show us some new designs in which they can make recycled plastic bracelets, bookmarks, and even larger totes made from recycled onion bags and rice and flour sacks. We are so excited to be creating a better footprint on the environment with a new line of recycled crafts!!

In other news, we attended a Naming Ceremony yesterday in the very south of Gambia, just near the border of Senegal. When the name was announced, Fatoumata, everyone was dancing (especially the women). There were traditional drummers, myriad colors and fabrics adorning the women and men of the family, and lots and lots of food!

We want to hear from you! Ask us your questions about our trip. We hope to post a few more blogs, but Internet is difficult for us here amidst the conditions and the busy schedule. We also have been experiencing a water shortage, and to-date have gotten just one "shower." But - thank goodness for bucket bathing and wells!

That's all for now, check in with us later!

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