Knit Club

My friend Dani and I threw several Knit Club parties back in Los Angeles. Every now and then we'd get together, throw open our doors and just invite about 20,30, or 40 people to come to one of our homes, eat (junk) food, chat and talk about knitting and crocheting. On several occasions, we'd find ladies realizing through some six degress of separation type magic that they knew one another, had mutual friends, dated the same guy, etcetra. During colder days, we'd put a log in the fireplace and curl up to a few hours of knitting. It always ended up with a good laugh and I'm sure some Knit Club devotees can vouch for that.

'Knit Club' on the Africa Mercy in Liberia is, well, different.

How different? Sitting-on-lime-green-linoleum-floors-under-fluorescent-lighting -with-half-dressed-women-in-their-hospital-gowns-and-their-urine-drip-bags-leaned-against-their-beds-while-knitting type of different.

Still, we are chatting, eating, knitting and crocheting.

Some of them speak English (well, Liberian English) and some of them don't speak a word of English especially if they are from the interior villages. All of them don't know how to knit, but they are hungry to learn something. Anything.

And while knitting may seem like a foreign language to some of the girls I've taught back in Los Angeles, I don't think that I will ever have as much prodding with a knitting needle than I do here in Liberia, as is the case with Nyamah. She speaks Kpelle with a smattering of English.

'EH! LIGH THEEEE?' She's shouting at me: Hey! Like this? She pushes me forcefully with the palm of her hand or taps me on the shoulder with her knitting needle.

'Yes, that's right,' I answer.

Moments pass.

'Oh, I make mistake!' Nyamah insists. She pushes me again.

' NO, YOU FINE-O!' I answer in my best Liberian English. I give her a firm smack on the shoulder. She cracks up and so does the woman over the next bed.

She refocuses herself, eyebrows furrowed. Most of the VVF ladies wear their gowns open in the front so they can clean themselves up more easily. She is fully naked underneath. She sighs as a stitch slips. Nyamah grabs the ball of yarn and shoves it between her legs in her bare crotch to hold it in place.

Now that's something I will probably not experience at Knit Club in Los Angeles. (And don't anyone dare try.)