The craft team has been so amazing welcoming me into their team and being incredibly dedicated and flexible. None of us can communicate with each other very well…I mean hardly at all. But, it has been a pleasure being around them and I'm am so honored I can give something back to them. They now are learning how to create more marketable products for the US. Sometime in the next few days, I'm going to interview them and ask how being apart of the craft group has affected their life, what fair trade means to them, what was life like before the craft group, etc… Rotjana is going to help me translate. I don't have a picture on my camera of her, however she has been my life savor. Allison is only other English speaking person at the orphanage and she has been gone since Sunday. Therefore, I have been struggling communicating with just about everyone. Well…besides Rotjana. She's Thai and who has learned to speak English quite fluently!
Some good news came my way early this morning. Anne has placed an order for the products I have developed! We are ordering 25 of the zip id holders in pink, blue, green and red. And, she has ordered 32 pieces of the clutches, 8 of each color. I'm going to keep the colors a secret until we get some made. I'm really excited about these!! We also are making another zip id holder sample in satin with a patterned trim. If Anne likes the sample, than we will order another 25. It's just been an overwhelming feeling of accomplishment having the products ordered. Now, I just have to get a really good sample of the robe and the other clutch.
I heard the news the morning and soon after we went to the fabric store. This first picture is us on the motor bike. I'll have to take a better picture so you can really see what we took. So basically it a motor bike with a cart attached for people to ride in. It's quite funny. It doesn't go as fast as the tuk-tuks, but kind of the same deal. We first picked up some of the plastic for the ids, then headed to the first fabric store. At this fabric store, we were buying the fabric for the zip ids. The worst part about the trip is that I am trying to buy fabric and no one around me speaks English. We spent about 10 minutes on colors. Nobody could understand when I said red, purple, pink, blue, etc…I had to point to a color on a different fabric, say the color then point to the fabric I wanted…over and over and over again. When we were finally all on the same page, we had to move on to the next fabric store which is just around the corner. The other fabric store is where I needed to buy the silk for the clutches. Let me just say the clutches are not 100% thai silk, as I was previously informed. Even though the fabric was in the "thai silk" section it is not indeed "thai silk". This would be considered an obstacle when working in fair trade. I have to say it was both fun and nerve racking picking out the colors for the clutches. I brought the forecasted trend board colors for the Fall and made my decision off of them and some advice from Anne. Some of the colors I wanted, they did not carry. There were lots of colors, just not the ones I was looking for. This would be listed as another obstacle, not always having an abundance of resources. We only bought 32 of the clutches, so we will see how the colors sell. For the Spring, we can source out the exact colors we want if needed. The rest of the day was spent sending emails and trying to come up with a quality assurance form.
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