Working for the man.

So for this story to make sense to you all, I'll need to give you some background. The place we're living in here in Dili is a two bedroom, two bathroom flat that is the second story of our landlord's home. In the house below ours there are essentially three families. Six children that I know of, and countless adults. One of the adults living below us, Mana Angela, is our housekeeper. She does our laundry, washes dishes, sweeps, and is basically a godsend. When she's not being amazing, she makes Timorese flags for soccer matches and festivals and such.
The other day I was walking up to our flat, after a run at the beach with boyfriend. I had the Sea Glass bag tied around my waist because the beach we ran at had piles of the colorful shards and I loaded up. As I approached the stairs Mana Angela came out from her house with her adult son Colbain (apparently he was supposed to be named after Kurt Cobain but "Cobain" is a tricky one in Tetun). Mana Angela told her son that I had made the bag around my waist and he asked me how long it took me.
"Eh, a day or two."
"Could you make me a hat? Black hat?"
"Yes, I could do that."
In exchange for my hat making services Mana Angela promised me a Timor flag to hang on our living room wall. So over the next few days I chipped away at a simple ski-cap for Colbain. I for one, did not see the appeal in having a hat where the average temperature is 85 degrees with 75% humidity. But it's what he wanted and I was more than able so I knit him up a neat little cap over the span of a few days.
This afternoon when the Mana came in to drop off some finished laundry, I told her that I had the hat for her son all finished and ready for his wear. I gave it to her and she left quickly, showering me with praise. A short while later Colbain himself came up to thank me and tell me that he very much liked his hat, and that I was a very good "crafter" (I don't think the word for knitting translates very well).
Later this evening, after Connor and Carrick were back from working out, and Sharanya was back from work, we all settled down to watch some t.v. and talk about our days. The doorbell rings and when Connor answered it, I hear Colbain's voice from the other side of the door, along with a few others in the background.
"I am uhhhh.... Like to speak with... Alexander?"
"Do you mean Alexis? Yes, she's right here."
I step out onto the porch to find Colbain and five others from his family. One older woman and her young son, two teenage girls, and a boy who looked about my age, all talking in hushed whispers and pointing at Colbain's hat.
The older woman started: "You make hat or sell hat?"
"I made the hat, but Angela is going to make me a Timor flag for it, so I did kind of sell it as well I guess."
"You make hat?"
"Yes, I made it."
"Oh..."
Everyone's quiet for a while, and then the older woman spoke rather carefully:
"We can all have hats?"
Now the seriousness of the situation struck me in an odd way. Here are six people on my front porch, looking at me dead-serious, waiting to see if I will be offended by their request. I smile softly and say:
"You all want hats?"
They nod.
"You want a hat too?" I ask the little boy tucked into his mother's side. He smiles and says "Hat!" and touches his head.
"Yes I can make you all hats. It's going to take me a few days, but I can make them for you."
Suddenly the tension is gone and everyone starts talking at once about colors they want and if maybe I could do stripes, and how much I charge, and the little boy asks Colbain if he can have his very own hat. Colbain translated for me and I nodded and smiled to the boy. I wrote down requests and assured them that as soon as they were all done, I would give them to Colbain to hand them out to everyone.
I'm pretty sure the family down stairs adores me.
I let you know how everything is going once I dig my way out of this pile of hats.

Anyone want to see what I've been working on?

 The many fiber-related things I've been working on since first arriving in Timor!

 First, the spinning:

I've only done a few batches from the raw wool I brought with me here. I haven't set the Purple or the Green yet, but I'm hoping to spin some yellow and some pink and work it into a traditional Timorese pattern.

 This is a scarf that I worked up in about a day and a half using the "Snowdrift Mobius Cowl" pattern that you can find here: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/snowdrift-mobius-cowl
(While looking up this pattern on Ravelry I found this one, also called "Snowdrift" and I want to make it! I'll add it to the list. http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/snowdrift-2)

This guy, I call "Fire Ant". Mostly because it's small and red, but also because I'm watching a Planet Earth documentary and insects are the main focus of the episode. This little shawlette was a project I worked up because it was simple and I was incredibly bored. The only really interesting thing about it is it's scalloped edge.

See? It's not especially fancy, but I like a little flared edge to spice things up.

This is "Sea Glass". It's a little draw-string bag that fastens around my waist so that when I'm frolicking about on the beach (be it snorkeling, wading, or just lounging), if I find an interesting piece of sea glass or shell, I can just toss it in the bag and bring it home with me. I am an avid sea glass collector so an accessory like this it just what I need.

Now the next things I'm going to show you are not my work, but in the interest of the fiber arts, I must show you what I got.

These little beauties are called Taiis (ty-es). It's an incredibly beautiful and complex form of weaving using tiny silk threads. There's a Taiis market not too far from our house where women have stalls where they sell their gorgeous works. I'm afraid and excited that I might build up quite the collection while I'm here.

So that's what I've been up to lately, not a whole lot, but you know how it goes. I'll keep you guys updated with new knits and crazy stories.

P.S. I've tried to write this post like, four times, but each time my computer has crashed or I get booted off the internet, or my battery dies, or something else that causes me to lose the entire post. Fifth time's the charm?

Busy busy busy...

Hello my lovlies, I'm sorry that there has been such a delay in my postings but I've been busy doing... Nothing really. There's so much to tell you about that every time I sit down to write it all out, it just seems like way too much work and I play a Nancy Drew game instead. Let's do a brief overview of my activities, shall we?

-I've been knitting like a fiend. Churned out a mobius scarf, a wee coin purse for my coins, a belt-bag to collect seaglass in (who's pattern I designed and may very well put on Ravelry), and a slouchy hat that I only just started today but that should be done by the time Connor gets home. I also have a passport cozy on the needles for Carrick, but that will have to wait until I have enough motivation to pick it up again.
-Connor and I went to the East Timor equivalent of the DMV. It. Was. Awful. Almost worse than back at home if you can believe it. Carrick's fiancee Sharanya told us it would only take forty minutes or so, but it ended up taking several hours. We would have been there even longer if a helpful Timorese man hadn't come up to us and said: "Sim?" Which is a permit to drive. We nodded and he whisked us away to another window, filled out all the paperwork for us, and took us through every step of the way, thereby putting us in front of himself and making his trip to the DMV twice as long. After we got our permits, I tried to hand him some money for his trouble (before anyone gets offended, that kind of behavior is customary here. Help someone out, get a few bucks) and he shook his head and said: "Just to help." What an awesome guy!
-Missed my skype date with my family on Monday due to an unfortunate miscommunication with Sharanya about when she was leaving for West Timor (taking the internet stick with her, as was agreed upon). I was super bummed all day, but Connor went out and got another one, so hopefully I'll be able to talk to my family soon.
-I don't know if it's a children's week festival or something, but for the last few days, whenever the sun goes down, children gather in the streets and start chanting something in Tetun and then break into song. This lasts all evening and well into the night. It might be cute if it wasn't so... creepy. Anyone who knows me knows that I have a strange aversion to children singing. It's too much like the shining. When kids sing, I get a wicked case of the hee-bee jee-bees.
-I've been reading like a fiend too. I've been a fast reader my entire life but in the last few weeks I've broken some of my own records. I read Stieg Larson's "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" in just a few days, I re-read one of my favorite romance novels whose name I will not divulge due to embarrassment, I read Suzanne Collins' "The Hunger Games" yesterday, and I read a fantastic book by Stephanie Bond called "In Deep Voodoo" today. I need to either get more books on my kindle or start reading slower. All I have left that I haven't read are "Mocking Jay" the second of the Hunger Games trilogy, "The Girl who Played with Fire", the second of the Melinium Trilogy, and Jane Eyre. I'll probably be through those by the end of the week.

Well that's all I've got for now but next time I'll definitely have pictures of my latest knitted goodies.

P.S. If you have a Kindle, like mystery novels, and want a new read, then you should take a look at "In Deep Voodoo". It's incredibly good, totally blew my mind in terms of what I was expecting it to be. Plus it's free for Kindles! I don't know about Nooks though...