Art and soup

It's a cloudy afternoon for a change, which does not mean it is cool out. It's more like the temp of the conservatory at Volunteer Park. But it means staying inside isn't so bad, so I can tell you about some of the little things that make our lives here better.

Ever since we got here we have been hoping to find an arts community, with little luck. We know there are great artists here, but where to find them? Then one day a neighbor started talking about how she used to buy art for corporations in Uganda (she is a Ugandan who lived in Sammamish for a few years, small world). She promised to give me a list of galleries and shows. Then one evening last week she showed up with an artist, Jjuuko, and we had an impromptu art show in our living room (which is also our dining room, entry hall, and hallway to bedrooms and bathrooms). Jjuuko propped his paintings everywhere, and his unframed barkcloth work spread on the floor. The place looked great! Transformed from "we are going home sometime" to "now we live here."

When Bill returned from Lira, we went to see Jjuuko's studio, a bungalow where he lives, and works in the garage. He welded his own furniture and the place is full of color and intresting artifacts from Tanzania and Uganda. He has stories about it all; and his art is mostly about Ugandan culture: "timekeepers" (roosters), women carrying old-fashioned jugs for water, etc.

We bought a barkcloth painting of some women at the hairdresser's, and here's why we got the one you see here. The women here spend hours - I mean half a day or more - in beauty saloons (not salons, "saloons"). They come away with plaited hair, some dyed in orange or red stripes, or with shockingly straight hair that stands straight up on their head. Sometimes their hair looks like a feathered hat, other times it is long and dreadlocky. Even women who have little money seem to save enough to get their hair done. There are saloons everywhere, sometimes four of five in the same little "block." So when we saw this painting, we knew it would remind us of the Ugandan women's hair.

We also have four tropical plants in our flat. They soften it up a bit and it's fun to watch them grow, though I think occasionally I hear them asking why they can't go outside with their friends. I might add one more, a red, green and white yam. But not sure where to put it! Things are filling up.

Then we have a gourd like the ones they drink beer from, and a weaver-bird nest with a porcupine needle in it and also a guinea hen feather sticking out from it. Oh, and a little three-legged stool.

And, because the mangos are positively falling from the trees right now, we had cream of mango soup this week - cold soup that tastes like ice cream. Yum.

All those things, plus the fact that a tailor in the market made me a skirt last week, and we actually bought hangers -- you can see that we have a home away from home.