Quilting in Botswana?

Judy and I attended our first guild meeting as full-fledged members and had such a lovely evening.  We proudly wore our nametags and had such a warm reception!  We sat with a member who knew a good bit about applique and told us "The secret is in having a very small needle."  Who knew?  I was surprised when the past president (who, quite frankly, is one of the reasons we decided to join) came over to ask me about something she'd read on this blog (Hi, Jane!  I believe this is the link you mentioned) and another member also mentioned the blog.  I'd no idea I had readers among the guild.

The program for the evening was presented by one Cindy Friedman, as lovely an individual as you'd ever want to meet.  She's a fiber artist who does things like the piece to the left.  There were two parts to her talk:  The latter part was about her silk organza work and the process she uses to obtain these gorgeous results.  It was fascinating.  Equally interesting, however, was the first part of her presentation, which had to do with her efforts to introduce quilting to the people of Botswana.  She taught us quite a bit about the health issues in that country: Her husband is an infectious disease physician who makes frequent trips to help reduce the rate of HIV and AIDS and other communicable diseases among the poor people who live there.  Cindy has accompanied him on some of these trips and because she is the sort of person who would not want grass growing under her feet, she spends her time there working with local artists, helping them by bringing their art back to the United States to sell and teaching them how to paper-piece fabric scraps to make AIDS remembrance pins to sell.

I seldom use the work "inspiring" to describe a person, but that is exactly what this gentle woman is.  In her own unique way she is making a difference.  Bravo!