Today was pottery day.We visited three producer groups around El Fayoum—one was truly special.

Rawya Pottery was our first stop.Rawya is a 33-year-old woman who began her career as a potter in her teens when she made friends with the daughters of a Swiss woman who had a ceramic workshop near her village.“Madame Evelyn” eventually gave her some clay to play with and found Rawya’s little animals to be charming.She began teaching her how to use a wheel and after she became proficient Rawya was offered a job in Evelyn’s workshop.Rawya’s creations were good enough to sell and Evelyn began to market them for her.When she was 22 they took the pottery to France for an exhibition and a four month stay.Other young women who had started learning the craft had married and dropped out by then, but Rawya had refused the marriage planned by her family because her art was so very important to her.She eventually left Evelyn’s employ and opened a workshop of her own.She is a woman to contend with—a creative powerhouse!

Rawya told us her story from the beginning, and we met her two daughters who also seemed very at home around a pottery wheel.In fact Sarah, the eldest, had some small pieces in the showroom with her mother’s.The pieces I am bringing home will always be special to me.

Down the road was another workshop and some extraordinary art pieces we enjoyed seeing.After lunch we drove about 30 km to a community where about 300 craftsmen made more functional unglazed pottery.They produced the very traditional, very Egyptian utilitarian pots and jugs used by rural folk all over the country.The kilns were wood fired, sadly by very young boys that day, and the smoke poured out of centuries-old chimneys next to equally antiquated workshops.

I’m seeing places I would never have known about were it not for this opportunity to travel with Carrie on our just trade tour.I am looking forward to tomorrow—and the next day, and the next!