The House of Detention

Well those de-humidifiers that the organizers of the Clerkenwell Design Week had promised for my prison cell in the exhibition  dungeon did what they could, but the last three days'  of MaliMali's textile show have been a bone-chilling  ordeal, there is no getting away from it. I am today spending an indulgent  afternoon in my God mother Giulietta's lovely warm flat, celebrating my 'release' by eating lots of chocolate and doing absolutely nothing, having spent the morning clearing the show away.

And did it do us any good? Impossible to tell. The show was supposedly frequented by potential clients: architects and interior designers who might want to use our textiles for various projects. People wandered in  and out of my 'cell',  some of them casting a furtive glance only but  picking up a business card, others staying and chatting for some time, while I went through  the rigmarole of explaining everything about the bogolan manufacture in detail, only to find out as often as not when I asked who they were that they had nothing to do with design  whatsoever, but they were in 'human resources' or 'IT' or ran a restaurant up the road..... Oh well, at least it passed the time and made me forget for a moment  how dreadfully cold I was.  The faintly annoying thing was that I had to reply to exactly the same .questions as those facing me when I am at Hotel Djenné Djenno: "how long have you been in Mali?' "What made you decide to live in Mali?" etc.  etc. The picture behind me of Dembele made everyone think I was showing Kenyan fabrics because he looks like a Masai, draped in the Zebra fabric. I had to disappoint them all by explaining that  Dembele is an accountant, not a Masai Warrior.
Let's see what it will bring... I am now intending to concentrate on having a holiday!