Christmas Card

Our Christmas Card this year...

Merry Christmas!

I painted this when I was 6 years old... with a little help from my talented grandma. Back then I wanted to be an artist; I wanted to draw and paint; I wanted to be like my grandma. That path never worked out for me, I think either you got it, or you don't. And... I don't. But I've found other things I'm decent at and that I love ... those things I will do.

Kim & Blake

I love any excuse to take photos... and with Christmas I have lots of opportunities to take photos of cute little kids and families - its that time of the year, I guess.
Last week I called my cousin Kim and said, hey, want me to take photos of you and Blake... right now? Luckily she was up for it, so we rushed over to the park to snap a few photos before the sunset - the golden hour, right in between rain storms.





So I've been thinking more about my photography, and I'm wanting to get out there more. Make myself more available for sessions and shoots... people, stills, travel, food, whatever... I've had so many cool opportunities over the last few months, but I'm eager for more - bring em on!

Rain and Sunshine

It rained all weekend.

And it was great.

I did a lot of this:

I love the rain, but what my favorite is the sunshine after the rain - seems to clear that LA air.

We went to our little spot in Eaton Canyon (which turns out to be a lot of people's "spot," hence the graffiti and litter - but we still like it nonetheless.) It's our little get away. And right now, the water is flowing, the temperature is just right, and its beautiful!

It's Beginning to Feel...

It was weird being out of the country, and not celebrating Thanksgiving. When we got back it felt like everyone jumped ahead to Christmas.

But yesterday my family was nice enough to have a Thanksgiving 2.0 for Justin and me. After having our mashed potatoes and stuffing, all is right. (Right now I have a Thanksgiving-Left-Over-Pot-Pie in the oven, mmmm, can't wait!!)

Now... we have the tree up...


I made stockings:


I bought this ornament last year from Ten Thousand Villages, and then last week I got to meet the artisans who made it!


And now its officially boot weather (although, I cheat and wear them whenever I can, no matter the weather)


Today has been cold and rainy, I love it, and Southern California needs it.

And it's a welcome change. Feels more like late fall/winter, feels more like the holiday season. (Although, not the consumerist holiday season, no black Friday, sales, and shop, shop, shop. Handmade gifts are so much better... Here is a good resource about all this.)

Eid

(warning: graphic photo below)

I'm home, but still recovering from jet lag. I'm. so. tired. I have had no energy to upload and edit all 1200 of my photos from our trip! Hours and hours of fun editing, which I really do enjoy, but can't imagine doing it just yet.

So, I am a little late posting about our last day in Dhaka, but here it is. It was the Muslim holiday Eid, and it was so great getting to experience Bangladesh on that day. To my vegetarian friends, be warned. This Eid holiday was a day for sacrifice, and literally every other house that we saw, out front they were sacrificing either a cow or a goat. I dare not say "kill," Justin was corrected, "We are not killing, we are sacrificing." Fair enough.

While walking down the roads, some gutters were literally running with blood and the smell, imagine a warm butcher shop. Despite this being hard to stomach, me being a some-what vegetarian, it was still a beautiful day. When emailing a contact in Dhaka about the holiday before we arrived he described Eid as a day where "everywhere is joy." And it was.

Early in the day we went to visit a beautiful mosque. We didn't expect to go inside because we weren't sure if we were allowed, but a Bangladeshi man named Bashir insisted that we go in, and that he show us around. At one point some men at the mosque wanted to sit and talk, Annika and I were told, "for gents only." So, we found a little spot on the ground and sat, and waited for the men to have their visit. The men at the mosque made sure we were comfortable, they came by and gave us cookies and water, they even came by to anoint us with oils, it was very sweet. They were also explaining to us that despite what we believe, we are the same, we are human. And peace is so important. It was beautiful.

We couldn't tell what the men were talking about, but I knew Justin was loving this culture experience, especially since the men only new Arabic or Bengali, and of course, Justin, nor Ty spoke either of those.

That night, before we left for the airport, our sweet friend Suraiya invited us to her families home for dinner. It was wonderful to celebrate in a home. Annika's story here.

Muktagacha

Tuesday we were supposed to go visit another village that was about 3 1/2 hours away, but after about 3 hours we weren't even half way there. The traffic was stopped because millions of people in Dhaka were leaving the city to go to the villages to celebrate Eid. Our driver told us that if we were to try and keep going the whole trip would have been 20 hours! So, sadly we turned around. We were also told that the trip for the next day should also be canceled because of the traffic - we were so disappointed. This meant that we might as well fly home because we could not travel at all, we were ready to change our flight. But we got a second opinion and we were told to leave extra early - so we did and we made it! (Although there was major traffic on the way back, we arrived back at our guesthouse at 1am!)


This project was working on pineapple thread. Here she is weaving pineapple and silk threads together to make an expensive piece of fabric.


The threads of pineapple are only about a foot long so they HAND TIE each thread together, that's what makes this expensive!


The pineapple fiber in raw form.




Hand tying each thread...








We visited another paper project, Bonoful. These women were talking to me in Bengali and pointing at my camera, so I took a picture of them. When I showed them the photo on the camera they laughed so hard, it was great!


Making marble paper, genius.


They used left over cotton scrap from mills to make cotton paper. These women are cutting the scraps up.


My favorite project was the Sacred Mark. Women who want to leave their form lives of being prostitutes come here to work. They are put through a year of training on how to enter into a normal life again, and they are trained on how to make natural soaps. It was very, very moving being there. More here.

Barisol {2}

The second day in Barisol we visited two more projects: Keya Palm and Biborton Paper. These women are very skilled, its so impressive to watch them work. And once again, they were pleading for orders. I didn't come with the intention to help them find jobs, but now I want to do what I can for them - so, if you or anyone you know is interested in ordering fair trade products...

















Annika posted about this day on her blog too.