Ahmedabad – Day 2
The plan for this morning is that we will go to see Sister Lucia,
an 80+yo Spanish nun who has established a learning/working facility for the
under-privileged women of Ahmedabad.
She started simply, with a tribal fabric enterprise, probably 20 years
ago and has, over time, developed a large-scale operation which employs
upwards of 100 women making everything from school uniforms, under contract to
local private schools, to really fine quality fabric goods. She ships all over the world, including
to the US. Her latest training
scheme for the women is cosmetology and hairdressing! Apparently, Father Jerry has been a long-time supporter
including assistance with funding.
She is a dynamo with sparkling eyes and great energy. She has told the women ‘We don’t want
people buying out of pity; we want them buying because of the fine
quality.’ And Jerry tells us she
is a terror at quality control. Of
course we have to have the tour and look at the product line. They are wonderful, and we can’t
resist buying some!!
All handwork - beautiful!
A tree of life pattern.
Huge table cloth with matching napkins.
Tote bag, tribal design. This saleswoman was a hoot! She was astonished when we didn't buy one of everything. 'You don't want this?' said with such astonishment I almost changed my mind!
Sadly, I didn't get a photo of Sister Lucia - she was like a whirling dervish. Wonderful morning!
Jerry has an after-lunch commitment so we head off on our
own to the Step Well, a local attraction.
Our driver tells us that the story is that a local princess was wooed by
a man she was not too keen about.
To prove his devotion, he was asked by the princess to dig a well in a
most unlikely location (this is a desert environment and one doesn’t go digging
wells just anywhere) and once he had dug the well, and found water, she promised
to marry him.
She never dreamed he would be successful, but he was. The well was dug, it filled with pure
water, and the access to it was an architectural wonder. The story goes that her horror at his
success was so great that she hurled herself into the well rather than marry
him. To this day, no one has taken
so much as a cup of water from it.
This may be one of those stories . . . but the wonder of the Step Well
remains.
Steps down from the street level. Unless you knew this was here, you'd never find it. It's about 45" out of the city, in the middle of a busy intersection and if there was a sign, we missed it. Good thing the driver knew where it was.
There were about 20 school children working on drawings of a portion of the walls or columns.
And, at last, the well.
It's about 5 stories down, smelly, and sad.
The scope and details of this well are staggering . . . a few more photos.
One happy photo before we leave . . .
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