Now that our stay in Assam has ended and we have access to a great Internet connection we would like to share the recipes for the dyes we have made in Assam. We used locally available plants which could be collected from the village itself. The shades we have gotten will vary with the season, the soil, the amount used, the water and the mordant, so you might get different results as we do. TEAKTectona grandis The teak tree will be well known to most of you for its brown-redish wood. However, its leaves have great properties and uses as well. In some villages, they are still used as plates during big functions which is great as it avoids plastic for...
“You have to try the impossible to achieve the possible” Hermann Hesse This quote very much epitomizes the beginnings of we are KAL 2,5 years ago. Starting as a research project out of interest and curiosity, we are KAL is now a social enterprise slowly growing, working in three different parts of India as well as in Leipzig, Germany as a home base.I am currently in India working with our teams in Ladakh, Assam and Himachal Pradesh. A week ago I reached Assam and spent the past weekend in Assam's neighboring state Meghalaya, where the journey of we are KAL began. The preparationsKAL might have not started in the most conventional way... When looking back, the bitter and mesmerizing moments of...
Two weeks have gone by since we returned to Ladakh and our team here in Kharnakling. Tomorrow we will leave for our first trip to the nomads in Kharnak, a small nomadic community from the Changthang Plateau, to start selecting wool for this winter. Kharnakling is a small village which was founded more than twenty years ago. It consisted of a few small houses of nomads from Kharnak, who decided to settle down and leave the nomadic life. The difficulties they have faced such as cold winters, lack of medical facilities and education were too much to live with. Settled nomad Jigmet in front of his house during construction. Shepherd Tenzin in front of his flock of sheep in the...
“A story that makes sense is one that stirs the senses from their slumber…to make the senses wake up to where they are.” ― David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous At we are KAL we have often wondered if products aren't just like stories. Allowing you to connect to people you have never met, places you have never seen and cultures you have never heard of. You will certainly remember a story that made you see the world with different eyes. This is the kind of story KAL wants to tell. In our every day life we surround ourselves with hundreds of things that we don’t really know, such as our toothbrush, house key or kitchen towel. In our eyes there is...
