We suffered a couple of little, very little, setbacks this week, but we'll get right back on our doll horse and keep going.

During our weekly chat--overcoming the vicsitudes of the hangout itself seems to occupy a good percent of our time, Lizzy was showing me the wonderful website on Wix she had created for the Uganda group.  It was amazing!  I loved the font she chose!  It was readyfor the Publish button. 

And then poof! it was gone like something in Harry Potter. I'm looking forward to showing it off to Etheldreda when it's redone.  Lizzy said that having done it, she will be able to knock out another one much more quickly.

Etheldreda said she did not receive the doll patterns I had photographed and sent as an email attachment.  Could not open them.  AND she had lost her cell phone, so had been unable to correspond.
But we got together in a series of emails. I re-emailed the patterns over facebook, and I think she was able to open them and make a copy. Haven't heard anything new yet.  But she is working on her facebook page, adding photos of her kids (grown) and updating her own photo.

I checked out Wikitravel.org as a point to link our Traveling Dolls page to, so that the dolls people can check out their cities and countries.

St. Bruno Doll Making Group

16 May 2012

So much has happened since we started our Traveling Dolls project a couple of years ago.
The main thing is that we found a group of women in Uganda who already make dolls a lot like ours,
run by the friendly Etheldreda Yatuha, Chairperson, since 1995. They are the St. Bruno Doll Making Group, a part of WOUGNET (Women Of UGanda Network).

The mission of the WOUGNET http://www.wougnet.org/cms/ is

"to have a group of women involved in practical work, to improve their standards of living. St. Bruno aims at encouraging women to get involved in fulltime work and to create women entreprenuers to enable women to create rather than seek for jobs."

We have shared a few emails in which Miss Etheldreda sent pictures: a doll of a woman with a child on her back, a doll of an older child, and a picture of her shop.

The St. Bruno Doll Making Shop

Mother Doll with Baby

Older brother or sister

St. Bruno Doll Making Group' is a community-based group that specializes in doll making. Rapha African dolls under St. Bruno was initiated way back in 1995 by Etheldreda Yatuha under the supervision of Sister Regina of St. Franciscan Sisters of Nsambya. With the knowledge of art and tailoring, she made a doll which she code-named RAPHA. The doll was made from cut-offs she picked from a tailor. Soon after, Etheldreda picked the cut-offs again and made a man for RAPHA. She also made babies, a boy and a girl to make a family for RAPHA. After 3 years, RAPHA asked for another baby, which she is now carrying on her back. This gave birth to Rapha African dolls under St. Bruno.

As you can see, this will be a great group to partner with.  Today, I emailed her our patterns. We'll see what develops.

Meantime, Lizzy and I get together on Sundays at EST on Google+. We are hoping that Miss Etheldreda can join us someday soon.