If I’d had a clue about how much Botswana would shape my life, I might not have been so hesitant to go. Sometime in 1973, with a background in commercial art, clothing design and production management, and hand weaving, I sought out the CUSO office in Montreal hoping to find a way of following my yoga teacher to India. Instead, I was offered Botswana and the task of doing a feasibility study to identify ways of employing girls who left the brigades with sewing skills. It was a hard sell, but months later the enthusiasm of the recently returned Nangle family gave me the final push. Carol (now Caroline Shepard) and Hugh took up yoga with my teacher, and I went to Botswana. Three-and-a-half years later, I left this gentle, welcoming country with work and living experiences I could never have imagined, so much new awareness and knowledge, a British husband – Alan Etherington – and an 8-month-old daughter, Amy Pulana.
I have never been close to and inspired by so much creativity and magic as in Botswana: beautiful Thamaga, my home away from home, and the creation of the Botswelelo Pottery and Sewing Centres with the amazing energy and skills of Anita Hamilton (then Hutchings), Linda Snyder, Bodil Pearson and visionary/hero, Father Julian; the miracle of Oodi that many of us are still reminded of daily with the tapestries that grace our walls, with two more heroes, Ulla and Peder Govenius, and dear Krempien, their red-bearded side-kick/tenant; the work of still practising (in Totnes, Devon) textile artist and close friend, Caroline Hall, and the textiles of Serowe and later, Francistown; the development of Botswanacraft with Susan Bellan’s involvement in the crafts of the Kalahari…..
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Add a ReflectionWhat was the lasting impact of the CUSO Botswana experience on the rest of your life? How did it change you? How did it affect your values, beliefs, actions? Your thoughts on the meaning of the experience are important to all of us and to Cuso International (200 words max). Email your reflection to: Archives
June 2019
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