Knitting Partners in Bolivia: kiva & “27 de mayo”

Do you know about micro-lending? Do you know that there are knitters (and other needle workers) in the “developing world” in need of support? Here’s an interesting way to further the cause of women, knitting and international affairs … all in one ‘fell swoop’!

Kiva International is an international micro-lending organization with an established successful record doing what it does: making very small (micro-) loans to all manner of people in the “developing world”. At the moment there’s a women’s cooperative in Peru called 27 de Mayo. (sponsored by Pro Mujer, which itself works on behalf of impoverished women’s welfare and economic development in South and Central America), currently looking for funds to purchase materials for their knitting business … Can you spare $25 (or more) as a loan within the next 10 days?

Here’s how Kiva’s micro-loans word: you make the loan and can get the $ back within a year (or reloan it) after the recipient has repaid it (usually within a year). I’ve given Kiva loans as gifts (it’s easy as pie) and made a number of different loans. The money’s always been repaid in a timely manner in the past, so I’ve just made a new loan to this project.

The women of 27 de Mayo are on a deadline, so please check it out here.
Muchas grácias amigos!!

7/22/08 Update:
Eureka! The worthy women of 27 de Mayo have received the full amount they requested from Kiva, a week ahead of their deadline! In only two days, donors have generously loaned/contributed $2500! If any of you contributed to this group via this blog post, thanks very much! This is an amazing, (nearly) invisible community.

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Continuing Cover: if I could snood

My Jewish community includes women as full and fit members of its ritual community, its minyan. The Reform tradition is (officially) indifferent on the subject of women’s headcoverings, so the challenge of including women’s cover in the Minyan Project has required more investigation.

Modesty: walking humbly

Modesty in dress (and behavior) is governed by the principle of tzniut, supposedly mentioned first in the injunction of the prophet Micah (6:8): “[...] to walk humbly (hatzne’a leches) with your God”. This “humble walking” has repercussions in many aspects of Jewish life: sexual relations, contact between (or separation of) men and women, clothing (how much of the male or female body to expose, or not), and women’s voices and hair coverings.

Historically, Oriental (Sephardic, or Mediterranean) Jewish women were covered completely, similar to Muslim and Hindu women; “Mountain Jews” from Azerbaijan were similarly covered from head to toe. (These images are 19th-century paintings by Théodore Chassériau, left, and Max Tilke, right). Reproducing these headcoverings will take more than a bit of thought and doing.

In the meantime, I’ve started on the more accessible headcoverings worn by European Ultra-orthodox (Haredi) Jewish women – the tied tichel (Yiddish for “kerchief”), sheitel  (or sheytl, the ubiquitous wig) and snood (hairnet), though I expect to tackle the Modern Orthodox practices, including baseball caps, berets, and bandanas.

Would if I could …

Here’s a progress photo of a first pass, the Snood Deux pattern for a start (we’ll see how it goes after a while), MCY silk & wool (thick & thin, worsted) and 3.25 mm/US 4 needles (16″ circulars). (A photo of the sheitel, a modified Hallowig, to come).

FYI: my own snood pattern will be forthcoming, but in the meantime, there are plenty of snood resources available online … including (other than the Snood Deux) vintage patterns for crochet (such as the Perky Snood, 1945 Loop-the-Loop Snood) and knitting (1944 Snood) (and a few others for purchase), and a contemporary open-work Summer Cotton Snood.

There are also the over-sized berets, known in urban circles as “Rasta” hats (perhaps Mango Moon’s sari silk rasta, or this, or this). And then there are instructions for a fabric snood, perhaps most similar to those worn by modern Orthodox women.

I’m not Orthodox, and my increasingly graying curls are (middle-aged-ly, modestly?) short … but if I were … and my hair was … I would … wear a snood. Especially as part of a modern minyan.

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