Bead Making Workshop

Ok! Time for my first in country blog post! I apologize to any of you who have been anticipating a post sooner (which I doubt is many), but access to fast internet is fairly limited in the town where I live, so I think I will have to type up blogs and post them when I travel into larger towns (like I am right now). It is hard to know where to begin, because in such a short amount of time Ghana has provided me with numerous ideas for blog posts, from exciting and sometimes nerve-wrecking travels on public transportation to learning to speak Krobo (the regional language where I am living) from the local provision store owner. But since I came to Ghana to help develop small businesses, I think that would be a great place to start!

The region I am living in has been known for several hundred years for their glass bead making. With Global Mamas, I am working with local bead makers and assemblers to produce and export beaded products to America, Europe and Australia. This past week, Moses one of our local bead makers with 25 years of experience, lead me through a bead workshop so I could learn a little about the craft!

The process begins when bead-makers take glass bottles and crush them down into tiny sand-like pieces (many of the beads Global Mamas uses are made from glass bottles collected from the U.S. Embassy, British High Commission, and other diplomatic offices in Ghana as a form of recycling). This process is very labor intensive as the majority of bead makers have little to no access to electricity to power machinery that could grind the glass down.

Once the glass is broken down it is sifted through, any pieces of glass larger than sand go back into the cylinder for further crushing.

Then, my favorite part, the powder die is added and mixed in with the glass.

The glass and die mixture is then placed in clay molds with a cassava stem in the center to insure the bead has a hole that rope or twine can be strung through.

The molds are placed in this pizza-like oven for 20-30 minutes. I am not sure how bead-makers can handle working in the hut all day, the oven makes it incredibly warm in addition to the 85-90 degree weather (plus humidity).

Once the beads are finished "baking", like any batch of cookies or brownies, you must let them cool before touching them, or you will badly burn yourself. :(

Then all that is left is rinsing them off and stringing them onto a necklace, bracelet or whatever creative project you have going on!

Since this was my first time making beads, I made a very simple design. Many of the bead-makers produce much more detailed beads in a variety of shapes and sizes, with different painted designs on them as well. I will try to post more photos in the coming weeks and perhaps, I can work up to the more complicated designs, as seen below! Many thanks to my fellow volunteer Erin who took this photo, and let me steal it!

I am spending the night in Accra, and tomorrow I head out to Mole National Park for the remainder of the weekend to see elephants! Wish me luck! (Written on August 25, 2011).