Beads Beads Everywhere Beads

A couple of my friends and I took a little jaunt this week to TK BEADS - a bead production facility.  Ghana, and many places in Africa, are known for their jewelry, beading, etc... This particular location is one of the closest to us so we decided to check it out.

Beads here are all handmade using broken glass and bottles - recycling at its finest.

Clay molds are used for each type - colored dye is added to clear glass and beads are cooked and hand painted with designs; colored glass beads have nothing added and are made in many different shapes.  

Glass is crushed into very fine powder before being put into molds....

Africa mold and star mold

 Cooked in clay ovens

hot glass out of the oven

making the bead holes while it's hot

 And then the beads are cleaned up with sand and water  - turned into something so beautiful!!

Each of these sweet people we met play a part in creating such beauty......

Our tour guide and sales girl - a HOOT!  So happy to do her job - many lessons to be learned folks!!

in charge of the blue beads

prepping beads for painting

hand painting designs

putting holes in hot beads

making clay for molds

Stringing the beads

This was my first experience since living here where I felt an overwhelming flood of emotion......you drive up to this 'production' facility and again, it is like NOTHING you expect.  Life here is so RAW and from an outsiders perspective - HARD.  Yet, they are living their life with such JOY.  They were so HAPPY to share their craft with us.  The young kids at work was especially hard for me, but again, it's one of my first times viewing it with my own eyes.  In a different way than kids on the street, begging, which is also common here, these young kids were working - helping their family provide.  I held it together this time - but this outing has been vivid in my thoughts ever since.  It was AWESOME!!!  I loved every second of it - I cannot wait to go back!  I should say, too, that we all came home with a fantastic assortment of beads......again, pictures do not do it justice!  I wish you could all be here to witness it first hand!

Experiences are always made better when sharing them with friends!!

These cuties let us snap their picture on the way out......

I continue to be fascinated at life here and not in a glamorous, fancy way but in the raw way that I mentioned before.  It continues to be nothing like I expected or imagined - in all the good ways and hard ways.  I'm still processing it all in my head but I feel at peace and happy here.....it is such an easy place to love!

(Disclaimer: there are things I do not love - like brushing my teeth using a water bottle every day, but it is a very small inconvenience in the grand scheme).