These are two of the painters, painting the beads after they have cooled from the fire. 

Here is a close up of the painting. They do this so fast doing the same stroke all the way down and then turning the stick slightly to do the next paint stroke all the way down. 

These are some of the freshly painted beads waiting to dry 

This is another booth of beautiful beads. This little boy was such a cute salesman that I had to take his picture with his mother and tell her what a good salesman he was, but it wasn't easy to get him to smile for the picture. See any color beads that you like? 

For those of you who are still feeling sorry for us I wanted to send this photo Tam took of me asleep under a little grass umbrella at Tills Beach. We haven't had a day off since we returned from General Conference so we drove 63 km (about 40 miles) down the coast, over dirt roads with gigantic potholes, through innumerable African villages, and landed at Tils Beach where we had a marvelous lunch and spent the afternoon snoozing, reading, and wading in the bathtub temperature water. We were all alone except for the two little boys who wandered by, an elderly white couple from Europe and a Ghanian couple. The sand is soft and beautiful, the ocean is spectacular, the breeze was blowing. You couldn't ask for more, except for the horrific traffic that always engulfs that road and turns a 40 mile trip into a 2 hour stress event. Oh well...the beach was worth it.

A beached whale sleeping it off at Tils Beach.

Two young Ghanaian boys playing with homemade cars at Tils Beach.

Just a sample of the beads at this stall. Enlarge the photo (click on it) to see it up close so you don't miss the beautiful colors. We have got about as many beads at our house as we do baskets. 

Deann and Mom doing their thing at the village bead market. This market is about an hour out of Accra in a little village. It is close to the bead factory Flat Stanley and Geo Gnome visited. You can see just one small stall of beads but there are dozens of stalls like this one. 

These two lads were at the bead market helping their mums and as I was taking pictures they began smoozing to have me take their photo. I couldn't resist. 

Mom practicing the fine art of bargaining to buy a basket. We love African baskets. They are so colorfull and sturdy and useful. We must have 20 baskets around the house and today we bought another five. They cost about $5 each. Hopefully we can get a bunch of them home as gifts for people on our gift list. 

Hmmmm! You are probably wondering why anyone would paint this message on a wall. Well...you can see the fellow in the white shirt just at the top of the wall on the right? Guess what he is doing? Isuppose it is because he is on the other side of the wall and can't read what is on this side. The Ghana MTC is the building you can see through the trees behind the fellow in the white shirt. 

This is the pattern Sister Child is using to make a quilt from her beautiful batik fabrics from Ghana. Isn't it beautiful? You can click on the photo to enlarge it and see the pattern more closely.

Interesting reminder on the back of this Ghanaian ambulance....makes you slow down in traffic...gulp! 

Our friends Flat Stanley (sent by Hanna) and Frank Geo Gnome (sent by Josh Lyman) have come for a visit to Accra, Ghana and we are at Cedi's Bead Factory just outside of the Agomanya Bead Market which is about 1 1/2 hours north and inland from Accra. We are going to find out how they make the beautiful beads that we brought home for our bead party for the girls to make their necklaces. Most of the strands of beads cost less than $5. But sometimes they have antique beads (hundreds of years old) that may cost $5 for just one bead. During their visit we will also visit a local market and meet Fostina the vegetable vendor. Last of all we will attend the wedding of our friend Olivia Amponsah, and her groom Frank Baffour Yempew.

Frank Geo Gnome is standing by some of the bottles that will be crushed to make the beads. This is a very environmentally friendly business. They take old bottles (juice bottles, wine bottles, etc.) that would just be thrown away and turn them into something very beautiful 

Flat Stanley likes this place there are a lot of beads being made into necklaces and they make great swings 

Frank Geo Gnome is helping Mercy string the beads that have come out of the ovens. Hey where are the ovens? Can I go there? 

This is a rock where the men crush the bottles into glass crystals. Look out Flat Stanley or you may be squashed even flatter, or get glass shards in your pants. 

Flat Stanley is on the roof (can you see him?).