Bunyaad Learning Trip – Before Departure

On November 10, Doug Horst and I (Doug Dirks), from the Bunyaad office at Ten Thousand Villages in Ephrata, Pennsylvania, will fly to Pakistan to visit rug makers and learn about rug making. We will join Yousaf Chaman who traveled to Pakistan a week earlier.

We are very much looking forward to this two week trip because we will meet rug makers and their families in their homes, right where Bunyaad rugs are created. This will help us to better understand how rugs are made, who makes them and under what circumstances they are made. We’ll get to visit and stay in rug making villages so we can soak up local culture and enjoy wonderful village hospitality. The food will be delicious and the conversations will be delightful.

We hope to learn a lot more about wool, spinning, yarn, natural and synthetic dyes, looms and rug knotting. Along the way, we will meet rug makers and their families and learn about their joys, concerns, challenges and hopes for the future.

We’re eager to visit some of the schools that Bunyaad has helped to establish, meet students and hear about their aspirations.

In Lahore we’ll stay with Yousaf’s family and learn more about how rugs are finished and prepared for export to North America. Maybe we’ll even be able to try our hand at trimming, washing and stretching rugs. Of course, all of our clumsy mistakes will be corrected before any rugs are approved for shipment.

Since Lahore is one of the most important cultural and historic centers of Pakistan, we’ll also visit historic sites and experience some of the cultural highlights.

Stay tuned for Doug’s next trip post

We’ll be keeping notes, recording our experiences and taking photos so that you can follow our adventures on the Bunyaad blog. We’ll come back from Pakistan with new friends, memorable experiences, tons of rug making knowledge and lots of new stories to tell.

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