The "Memories of Africa" textile workshop was so successful that we are going to make it an annual event.

We began with an opening lecture by Mr. Abban, head of the textile department at the Education University in Winneba and ended with lectures and demonstrations by two American quilters who discussed how to finish quilts and the dynamics of African American quilting.

In between we had an Asafo company dance their flags, an adinkra artist teach this ancient technique and various workshops on techniques like tie and dye and batik.

David and his cousin Paul were our Adinkra teachers. On the first day we learned how to carve the stamp from a piece of calabash and on the second day we stamped our cloth. Sadly, hand-stamped adinkra is going to be a lost art. Now the symbols are being silk screened using commercial dyes. The "real" dye is made from boiling the bark of the badia tree until it is tar-like. Paul is one of only four stamp carvers working today. Both he and David are dedicated to carrying on the traditional way of producing adinkra, but even they offer silk-screened pieces for sale.