We merry band of travelers

This trip north came about sort of accidentally, if eavesdropping can ever be considered accidental. Alice, a native of Kalamazoo, Mich., now calling Manhattan home, had a family connection to a bishop in Ouagadougou. (Let it be known now that I have already trademarked the title The Bishop in Ouagadougou for later use.) After keen surveillance, we learned that she was planning a journey north to see him. We figured she needed companionship.

As kind-hearted a clothing designer as you’re likely to meet, Alice immediately consented to the idea. Before long, two others joined the manifest, Jeanne, hailing originally from my mother’s hometown of Marblehead, Mass., but most recently of Ojai, Calif., and Maria from Barcelona.

All had in their separate spheres signed on to terms of varying lengths with Global Mamas. Alice has been instrumental in designing new garments for the organization, while resizing existing products to better suit the shapelier frame of the average American woman. Seeing her work, one wonders how they managed without her, and how they’ll fare once she leaves.

Jeanne arrived in Ghana after covering some 3,000 miles and passing through no fewer than 13 European countries on her bike. Having put her body to the test, she comes to Global Mamas to do the same for her experience as an operations manager at a fair-trade tea company. She has helped initiate an accounting system for the beadmakers in Odumase and is currently working on next year’s catalog. And she speaks French, which made her worth a juicy signing bonus on this trip to Francophone Burkina Faso.

Maria can also make with the oui oui talk, a skill which would play a critical role in a narrowly averted fracas at the Burkina Faso border. No stranger to the open road, she has lived around the world, including stops in Bangkok and Chicago. Her work at Global Mamas finds her helping organize and further the organization’s fair-trade certification program with its partner businesses. Best of all, she’s like a diamond mine of one liners: She’s not much of a gabber, but when she does talk it’s 24-carat hilarious.

The group formed as naturally as a carbuncle. Such is the beauty of traveling that one is afforded the exceedingly rare opportunity to join for a short time the life of a stranger, and then let them watch as you see how filthy, tired, frustrated and disagreeable you can get. Adventure is a sweaty business, and when you’re sharing it with the right people, as it was clear from the start that we were, it is a delight truly to be relished.

(Picture: Maria, Shawn, Alice and Jeanne on the road to the Burkinabé border)