Homeschooling

We have been supplementing a bit with the schooling.  Our recent trip to Ndop with the other Missionaries gave us an excellent opportunity for some field trips and writing up reports on the experience.

-Joy

Below is Joshua's report:

Bamisang Pres-Pot by Joshua

The Bamisang Pres-pot is a place where production of pottery is done.  The amazing thing is that they not only do the pottery, they also do clay extraction and purification.  Now, here is detailed information about Pres-pot.

When we got there, expectations were high.  We were taken down a path infested with fire ants which led to a river.  Muscular men were pounding a muddy mixture with traditional utensils.  It didn’t look very professional.  But then the tour guide explained that these were people not associated with Pres-pot at all.  They were just there for the extraction of the clay, which was inside the river.  The tour guide also told us that Pres-pot digs very deep into the river and filters the clay while non-Pres-pot workers just take the clay from the top and don’t filter theirs.  There were 2 different types of clay, black and grey, and Pres-pot uses 75% grey clay to give it a sandy texture, 25% to give it a very fine texture.  From all of this precautions and special doings we were all very impressed.

The guide took us to the workshop, where the purification and production was taking place.  They take the clay, mix it with a bit of water, and put it through a sifter.  One blind man was working there and his job was to move his hand around in the mixture to help in go through the sifter.  The tour guide said that because of his disability, he was “quite perfect” for the job.  The purified clay is left to sit for a couple of weeks, and the clay sinks to the bottom while the water rises to the top.  The water is removed and the clay is left to dry.  It is then packaged and put in a cold place for as many as  3 years to get ready for another process; the molding process.

The molding was done on a potter’s wheel.  We were immediately impressed by the potter’s wheels and the skill of the people using them.  The potter’s wheel was a simple non electronic machine which was powered by the person’s foot.  The person turned a wheel underneath which turned a wheel above.  The molding of the clay was done on the wheel above, taking from 2 to 10 minutes, depending on the difficulty.  When the clay was molded, it was set to dry for 1-3 weeks until completely hardened.

After it was hardened, the shaped clay was painted with a waterproof glaze.  Then in went in a very hot oven, temperatures getting up to 1,000 degrees Celsius, about 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit!  The glaze hardens, and the item is complete and ready for selling and exporting.

From this trip to Pres-pot, much was learned and a new respect for simple pottery was given to us.