Birthday celebration

A wonderful morning at Bamessing with Carmen and Gabe. Bamessing is a village 25km east of Bamenda.  Located on top of a mountain in the middle of a beautiful forest is The Prespot Center, a pottery center. As you can see, a vase in the making, notice the 2 straws at the bottom and at the top of the vase, these were used to make sure that the dimensions of all the vases would be approximately the same. The Center receives order from all over the world. These vases were being made for a major hotel in the US.

All pottery is made by hand by skilled artisans that are trained at least for 7 years before being allowed to produce any craft. Our guide showed us the technique they use. He pointed out that there is no access to electricity which means that all firing done in the oven, behind me, is fueled by wood collected from the forest. This is an amazing technique since desired temperatures have to be reached and kept constant to ensure proper baking/firing of the clay. The process takes usually 10-12 hours and the oven must be constantly monitored by someone. Most artisans are paid a certain sum per finished item, so during busy season they earn well, but if there are no orders then they have no work and no pay -- this, as our guide explained, gives them time to tend the farms, finish projects that are ongoing in their homes or spend more time with the family.

Just a beautiful flower :-), it was fascinating to see how it came out of its pod.

The view from what is called the Ring road -- in the distance one can make out crater lakes. It was a beautiful day, the weather was perfect, the temperature pleasant and the view fantastic.

My wonderful friend Carmen who has been extremely kind and has been hosting me since the 19th of August until I can move to my post.

My friend Gabe, who took all these wonderful pictures and bought me a great birthday souvenir mug from Prespot.

Here are more of his pictures:

      

Until the next time ---