Clay pots and tie-dye

My Internet connection has decided to stop working - ugh, so I'm having to resort to blogging on my iPhone. It's OK, but not the dream, so they'll be no photos or links in my next few posts whilst I try and get it sorted *breaks out in a cold sweat*. It feels very strange, but hey the show must go on...

Last Saturday, after the girls swimming lesson, we went to the library where they held a brilliant creative event put on by 'Iroko' an African theatre company who specialise in family edutainment. In my haste to get the girls to swimming on time I forgot my phone, so of course I couldn't take photos of the fabulousness that went down. Not that I'd be able to share with you at the moment anyway. Natch.

On entering the gallery area of the library, we were excited to see a room full of beautiful bongo drums in all different designs and sizes. We were one of the first to arrive, so we got stuck in with hitting out some beats under the wonderful guidance of the drumming experts. The children had a ball and my son danced up a storm, stamping his tiny feet to the beat and waving his hands in the air. He has got moves, even if I do say so myself.

There were creative workshops too and we watched as Kojo the clay moulding teacher, showed us how to make masks out of clay. The girls watched his every move as he explained how each piece of clay that he rolled and pinched made up a different part of the mask. Once he had finished making two or three masks it was our turn to have a go. We could make masks or pots. We opted for pots because the girls are forever collecting little nik naks so pots would come in handy. We started with a ball of clay each and under Kojo's guidance we made lovely little pots with patterns and lids. It was a lot of fun and we got to take them home too. My girls were chuffed to bits.

Then we moved onto the tie-dye workshop where a lady called Lydia showed us the art of tie-dying using cloth, string, warm water, colouring, urea, salt and another ingredient which currently escapes me.

We each folded our cloth in different ways, then used string to hold the folded cloth together tightly. Then, with aprons and gloves on to protect our hands and clothes from the extremely potent dye, we set about dipping the cloth into the colours which took our fancy. Red, yellow or blue. We could also dip into different combos of colour to make another. You know, yellow and blue to make green or red and yellow to make orange and so on. Once the cloth had been dipped into the colours of our choosing, the string was cut and the cloth was opened up to reveal beautiful tye-dyed patterns. They really were lovely, I'd even go so far as to say mesmerising. Really pretty. When my Internet connection is sorted I'll have to post pics.

After the morning session came lunch, courtesy of Iroko. They served up traditional African food. Jollof rice, chicken, stew, fish, plantain, salad, fruit and drinks too. It really was lovely and it was so nice to see all the parents and children from the local community coming together and having fun.

Unfortunately we couldn't stay for the afternoon session which involved story telling, drama and more crafts. But what we did partake in was thoroughly enjoyable, so we'll certainly be keeping an eye out for future events.