And Sometimes We Must Go Shopping

This tour was designed for ceramic artists (and that crowd) to be able to explore the different art crafts and pottery techniques used by the artisans of East India… at least that is how it was sold to me. Well, my friends, the true nature of this little expedition has become all too clear. I think the title of this essay says it all.

Today we took our bus* out into the countryside of the state of Orissa (not to be confused with the countryside in the state of West Bengal – that was last week) to visit two crafts villages. The first was a village of weavers – every home had at least one loom in it, where they specialized in material for making sarees and salwars (those are the pants suits). They also conveniently offered a visitor’s gallery where one may view (and hopefully purchase) the finished product. Now these galleries are pretty impressive considering that the gallery, the loom, and the entire family are housed in one or two rooms. In any case, our tour group (Carol included) just about bought out the village’s weekly production.

Next up was a village making cast bronze art pieces and jewelry using the lost wax process. How they make this stuff is truly fascinating, and it was all demonstrated and explained to us in detail. We were then graciously allowed to purchase a few samples of their handiwork.

At both shopping centers… I mean craft villages, it is customary to haggle over the price of any purchase. This seems to be great sport for the locals, and I don’t mean the ones doing the haggling. Swarms of people gather around the action to watch the transaction unfold. Comments are whispered between the onlookers. I don’t speak the language, but I’m guessing that a little wagering was going on as to how badly the customer was being taken.

This was pretty much a wasted day, as far as I was concerned. Carol, on the other hand, seems quite pleased with how the day turned out. Go figure.

On a more fun note, we saw monkeys yesterday! …and puppies! I can’t remember what kind they are, but I am going to say macaques, simply because that’s the only monkey name I know. Erika can straighten me out on this later.

Carol is too tired to post this evening, but not too tired to tell me what I should be posting. In particular, she wanted you to know that she has taken some wonderful photos of children, but because we can’t get the card reader to accept the memory card from her camera, she can’t show them to you. I think she suspects that this is my fault.

We will be in the beach town of Puri for the next two days and I am not optimistic about the prospects for internet access. So, it may be a couple of days until you here from us again.

Oh, and we found the perfect Christmas gift for Bruce R.

*The bus hates me – more on this later