A Visit to Kechene Pottery.

One day we had the chance to have our wonderful friend, Selemnah, drive our family around for the whole morning...we could go anywhere and we asked him to take us to a pottery and the market place. After driving through Addis for a while, dodging donkeys and cattle, we headed into the Northern section of the town. Selemnah informed us that this was traditionally known as the Jewish Quarter, and many of the Jewish people were skilled at crafts including basket weaving and pottery.

The pottery that we arrived at was a Women's Co-operative, something that I am always glad to support. The women were able to work the hours that they chose, the more they worked, the more they were paid and they also could negotiate their rates etc. They sold their pottery to the market stalls. It was cool to actually go right to the site where they were making the pots instead of buying them from a middle man on a market stall..

As we walked into the dimly lit room, we were met by a circle of women in the middle of a meeting, trying to negotiate for a bigger plot of land to build a new pottery works on. They agreed that we could come in and look around and of course, buy their pottery.

This picture was taken as we left. I went around and shook hands (and kissed that gorgeous little baby!!) We asked Selemnah to translate for us and told the women that their pottery was stunning and that we would be giving it as gifts in Canada...and also that we would let people know about them. (which I am now doing!)
They were so delighted.










This is the display room and it was so hard to choose what to buy and what to leave behind. It was beautiful. There were traditional coffee services, stunning bowls, plates and serving platters.
A lot of the pieces were decorated, it was all hand painted in the most intricate designs. The lady in the picture was one of the painters and she said that the smaller pieces took only about 15 minutes to complete!
We then toured the pottery works which were extremely rough and basic and it was amazing that such beauty could emerge from these squalid little sheds, stuck in the middle of a muddy compound behind an old fence.











As we left, a little group of children magically appeared, as is the case all over Addis...they just appear out of thin air!
They were delighted to pose for me in front of the pottery gates and a couple of the younger ones pretended to be karate champs or something similarly heroic. They screamed with laughter when I showed them this picture!
We gave them fruit bars and granola as we left.













Here is a little glimpse of the road we drove down to find the pottery...























...and the sign telling us that we had found it.


We left the pottery works to go to the market place which I will tell you about in my next post.

(PS...Not one of the many pieces of pottery that we bought got broken on the long journey home...proof of Dave's expert packing!)