Check out the images in the gallery.

A huge thank you to Sarah, and best wishes for all your future projects. Look forward to seeing you at the Wokshop again soon!

Lots of love

Ben

We slid through the market, past wax prints and soap stacks, mounds of drying shrimp softly shedding their smell and gold jewellery greedily hoarding the sun in the tight dark alleys. He called out to traders - this is the market he works in, touting toiletries and they’re his mates.

We were easy in each other’s grasp and whipping through the streets, ducking down snickets and back out across traffic, through a mound of plastic kettles and into an alley and then out on the battered bus park.

It really was a beautiful experience and my life flashed past with the Bamako sites - in a good way! It’s a long time since those first letters and they’ve had a big impact on my life!

Walking around hand in hand is something Malian men do when they’re old mates off on some big chat or mission. It’s a nice way to walk the street - and a nice thing to be able to do with a mate that you’d probably get battered for in the UK!

We went to his house to meet his wife and baby. His brother Mamadou was there too and we spent the afternoon bouncing the baby, laughing at photos and eating together, with neighbours dropping by. Nice way to spend a Bamako afternoon.

And after that it was off back to the Workshop with some visitors. Today was football and dancing for the most part, with a bit of ninja tumbling and felt tip tattoo drawing throw in. It feels incredibly positive down there at the moment.

We’ve got someone learning to make and play n’goni and loads of bogolan art on the go (which the kids were learning the night before - the video’ll be done edited as soon as I get back!)

Lots of good vibes! Here’s to the future!

Lots of love

Ben

It took a bit of hunting to track down the bags, which I found in a room at the back of the customs office. The officers on duty were lovely, happy to hear the bags were full of stuff to help a community here. So we rolled off, back through fields carpets in black bag flowers, scraps caught in the grass.

The beautiful national character of Mali has hit me full force again this trip. There is a genuine engagement with people around you, smiles spilling out from behind the fiercest scowls if you catch an eye, directness and honesty in the trades through bus windows, and babies passed to strangers and indulged as mums pile their stuff into battered minibus taxi.

And this isn’t pie-eyed innocence or naivety on my part - it’s something Malians are genuinely proud of. Many people you talk to have an explanation for it. And they often cite other African countries where differences are emphasised and conflicts agitated into violence as proof positive that their way is better. I can’t disagree.

The corruption is here: police are handed half the day’s takings with the taxi driver’s licence; ‘officials’ turn up at foreign businesses with eviction orders and city codes which vanish in return for a ‘gift’. That’s the way most of the world works. But it’s not the raison d’etre of entire bureaucracies and departments… unlike in some other countries.

And down at our project things are going well. I sat yesterday with the youngest kids - four, five and six year olds - as they shuffled and bounced on a pair of benches, chattering and laughing as the teacher chalked a lesson up.

The class was ‘repetition’ - chanting French words and sounds off the board and going up one at a time to read it to the class. My thoughts jumped to nurturing kids imaginations, modern educational theory and the power of creativity (and how to explain these ideas in Bambarra!)

But then I watched the kids. The power of just being together, squirming in a preschool class, colouring books ready for break, the joy of learning and being praised. It was amazing. And the ‘repetition’, chalk slates and old French-colonial style education is a national battle!

And the African Workshop is as much about creativity and play as education - both are vital.

‘What do kids do if they don’t have somewhere like this?’ I asked Amadou.

‘Nothing - eat, sleep, play with whatever they find lying around. They don’t have anything to do really,’ was the straight up reply.

Offering an alternative to that, creating space for kids to play and time for them to learn, is why me and Amadou are doing this. And with your help and support it’s making a lot of kids very happy!

The littler kids are dancing in a circle playing a hilarious version of Simon Says spliced with ‘heads, shoulders, knees and toes’! And these little ones have been showing me what they’ve learn since last time - reciting French numbers and songs and scratching words in the ground.

Plans are underway for a big community party on Sunday. The mothers of some of the kids who come to the African Workshop are cooking, the band is practising, materials are ready for art classes and I’m off to buy a dozen chickens on Saturday morning…!

There are some great plans developing here as we meet up with other organisation, travellers and businesses, but more of that when they bear fruit! I don’t want to jinx anything.

I cannot thank you enough for your support, belief, trust and imagination in supporting this project and making something really special here in Bamako.

Now I just need those bags to turn up…!

Love

Ben

The other passengers drained away and the carousel creaked around the room like an arthritic snake. A couple of hopeful baggage handlers even gave up waiting for me. And when the conveyor belt stopped and people started climbing through the hole in to the airports back rooms my heart sank! No bags…

It has taken days of pestering, calling the UK and Libya, arguing in a Bamako hotel and, finally, employing the powerful persuasion of a call from the Evening Standard to get them moving… Big love to Ellen Widdup for this story.

The bags - which are full of toys, school stuff and football kits for the kids - are in Nigeria. A little solo holiday! They are on their way back to Libya tonight then they should arrive here tomorrow. But even as they promised that they finished with  ’inshallah’ - God willing! No guarantees yet…

This was shot last February when we were over there to give you a sense of where the money goes and how the project works. Let me know what you think! And once I work out how to do it I’ll upload it to this site too!

Ben

The African Workshop is proud to announce its support for a fantastic new organisation – Folk Against Fascism.

FAF has been set up to counter the insidious move by the BNP to appropriate British folk music. As FAF put it on their great new website: “The BNP’s Activists and Organisers Handbook encourages its members to get involved in the folk scene; Folk Against Fascism aims to make such infiltration impossible, with support coming from all sections of the folk community.”

The country’s biggest folk stars are backing Folk Against Fascism to oppose the BNP. We are proud to be part of this, and there are some great ideas for partnership projects being developed. Visit www.folkagainstfascism.com/ for more info.

A massive thank you to Towersey Village Festival, the best place for music and dancing last weekend!

As well as putting on an incredible five day event, Towersey offered the African Workshop space to set up shop. We built a towering scaffolding stall and hung it with instruments and clothes made by the kids in Bamako, played the Groupe Africa Son CD and strung up Malian fans, shopping bags and t-shirts.

The response was fantastic – hundreds of people dropped by to watch the film about the project, listen to the tunes and to donate. And once I worked out that it only rained if I went up the ladder to fix the roof the weather was beautiful!

A huge, huge thank you to everyone who helped us raise an incredible £1,885.67!

It’s a massive step towards our £5,000 target needed to buy land and set up a bigger, better, purpose-built centre.

Special thanks have to go to Bryony of the Demon Barbers, whose fan-tastic demonstration of the power of out fans lead to a rush! And to Edward II, Eliza Carthy and the Imagined Village for plugging us, supporting us and popping over to say hello.

And, of course, to Pete Coe for generously donating the money from his CD sales to the African Workshop, as well as the amazing amount of work he does for us through out the year.

Towersey is an amazing place – thanks to Steve Heap, Alan Bearman and the rest of the crew for inviting us to be part of it. Hopefully see you all next year!

Don’t forget to check the rest of the site for other ways to get involved..!

Ben

Every time to request catalogues on buy online through this site, the African Workshop makes money!

Visit the site and get clicking - it’s an easy way to us to raise cash that will go direct to Mali….

There are over 600 companies signed up so there’s something for everyone - please pass it on,

Ben