After a hearty breakfast at the Chaman home we walked across the street to visit St. John’s school. The school is on the same property as St. John’s church. The school has 168 students from Kindergarten to grade 10 and 13 teachers. Families that can afford to pay a small monthly tuition. Families that can’t afford to pay can send their children for free. The Principal, Ms. Mehrul Nisa, said that 60% of the students go on to college.
On Saturday, November 14, we took a 6 hour drive south down to Chistian, a community that Bunyaad has been working in for 6 years. The Chistian area has a long history of Persian rug making. Bunyaad needed more rug making capacity and learned that talented rug makers in Chistian often did not have enough work and were sometimes exploited by unscrupulous rug buyers. Mr. Shah was recruited to be the local Bunyaad Rug Supervisor and today families operating 75 looms are supplying top quality Persian rugs to Bunyaad.
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.
The new rug shipment just arrived and we are amazed. Bunyaad rug artisans in Pakistan keep surprising us over and over again.
You would think that we’d know what to expect when we open the bales. Craftsmanship and quality of wool and colors are always high. Yet this newest shipment shows again the incredible artistry of the rug artisans we work with.
One gentleman came into the Centre asking “Is there still room for my two daughters to be recruited? They have just finished their high school and now have no job opportunities in this area.” He is is a local night watchman for many nearby shops at night. He told the Center’s supervisor that he wants his daughters to be able to work and to have a source of income for life. His daughters are now enrolled in training at the Center. Once they are trained, a loom will be installed in their home, easily multiplying their income potential and empowerment and increasing the financial stability of their family.