Artisan Expo!

I've been in Dakar for the last few days to the Artisan Exposition. Every year artists, who work with PCVs, travel to Dakar and have a two-day exposition/market. This year Alyssa was the expo chief and I was her runner/helper. She did an AMAZING job putting the expo together. The artists were from all over the country and sold: wood sculptures, silver jewelery, beaded jewelery, cloth bags, clothing, art work, traditional crafts, and a variety of other things. The first day the artists sold from 10am-5pm.
The second day the expo started with a training for the artists while volunteers sold for the artists. During the expo the artists created a network and elected a board to run the network. Theoretically they will be able to start planning and eventually take over the planning for the expo. After the network was created there was an instant increase in comradery and togetherness with the artisans. They started buying things from each other and collaborating on projects. Matar, my tailor/artist, is working with a leather artist to leather handles on some bags.
Another huge success of the expo was in the marketing. Usually notices are sent out by people who work in the office but this year Alyssa and I decided amp it up a little. We put flyers all around downtown Dakar hoping that it would attract some new clients... and it totally did! We had some people fill out surveys and most of the clients said they heard about the expo from our flyers downtown. One woman owns a boutique, heard about the expo from the flyers, and ended up buying a ton of stuff to resell. At the end of the expo we totaled the amount sold and this year we had tripled last year's expo total! Overall it was a HUGE success!
In addition to a great expo, we spent the weekend making delicious meals! The first night we made amazing taco salad, that was followed with bacon mac and cheese (made from Velveeta my mom sent), then Tamar and Alyssa made brisket and latkes, and last night we had pasta with an arrabiata sauce.
I'm at the training center in Thies right now to give a presentation this afternoon and then back to site! After that it's only a few days until I'm off to the US! I'm trying to load up the next few days with things to be busy so they don't drag on. I'll post my pictures from the expo tonight or tomorrow when I'm back at site.

KO