Christine! Get in here - I think we're making felt!

We were camping in the yard of some wonderful people after a long day on the bikes when they decided that it would be a good idea to give us a cultural experiance and put me to work.

I had been 'chatting' (as much as you can chat with someone who speaks a different language) with one of the women when another came out of the house, grabbed my arm and drug me inside. She was laughing and motioning for me to roll up my sleeves. Not sure what I was getting into, I followed the orders. We went into a room where there was a tarp covered in a thick layer of sheep wool. Three of us got onto our knees and began gently rolling up the tarp and wool as another poured boiling water through a strainer and onto the wool. Once it was rolled in the tarp, we secured it tightly with twine and the real work began.

We took the roll onto another mat, got back on our hands and knees and began rolling it back and forth. With each roll, we would flop all of our weight onto our forearms and the roll in order to compress the wool. It was actually quite hard work, but a lot of fun! The woman on my left kept flopping over and hitting me with her hips, laughing all the while. We counted in Kyrgyz and then in English, and then there were a bunch of words that I didn't understand...

We unrolled that, pulled off clumps of hair that were not matting properly and then removed the tarp. Again more boiling water was added and then just the felt mat was re-rolled. We covered it in plastic and went back to work with our forearms. Of course, the laughing and pushing continued with the work. We unrolled, re-rolled from the other end and worked it again and again. The last time we unrolled it, it was folded up, wrapped in twine, soaked in boiling water and set outside to dry and cool.

They showed us one of the coulourful traditional felt rugs that they had made in the past so we could see what a finished product would look like. What an incredible, yet simple process! It has given me so much more appreciation for all of the beautiful rugs and felted products that we are seeing everywhere! It is also wonderful that they realized what a great experiance that it would be for us and let us take part.

Jodie