What a long trip – 739km give or take.
Day 1: The Farm to Port St Johns. I don’t travel very well for long distances after my back operation so we decided to do the trip in two parts. On day one we drove from the farm to Umngazi River Bungalows in Port St Johns for one night of R&R . WOW what an amazing place. I wish we had had more than one night. We will definitely have to go back for more time.
I was very spoiled with a complimentary massage at the Spa. This was just what the doctor ordered after 400 odd kilometers of travel in a car.
Day 2: Port St Johns to Grahamstown. We got off to an early start on Thursday as we had a 6 hour drive ahead of us. This turned into about 9 with all the road works! We finally made it at 1730 and drove straight to the Angus Gillus foundation
where we were met by Lucy. Lucy works very hard to find funding for projects. She and Cynth (her trusty helper) then arrange for certain groups in the community to be trained in a particular field so they can start and maintain sustainable businesses. Very noble.
Day 3: Training. We drove for about 40 minutes to get to the Township of Glenmore where the ladies were to be trained. What a special group of ladies. They learnt about safety when making soap and you can see them below all kitted out and ready.
After the theory we had a lesson on how to use the stick blender.. the things we take for granted! Below you can see their soaps gelling. Cynth (in the red top) is paying close attention to my demo as she and Lucy will have to remind all the ladies of what they learned.
Once we had done the hard part of teaching Cold process I then showed the ladies how to make rebatch soap. And then they also got a demo on using Melt and Pour. They were all given a Riverlea Soap Melt and Pour kit to take home with them to practise.
Lucy has promised a follow up email to show me how the ladies are progressing. I am very excited. We also discussed the possibility of one group knitting cotton face cloths as an add on to sell with the soap. And they could also make homemade paper to wrap the soap.
Riverlea Soap
I admire you so much. What a wonderful way to give back :)
ReplyDeleteHi there Kim. These ladies were so eager to learn but it was quite scary trying to make sure the understood the dangers of lye. It was fun and I wish them well. As soon as I have an update from Lucy I will post more on their progress.
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