Six degrees of separation

 It is always fun hearing about our jewellery as it travels the world.  The connections are wonderful to hear about.  Recently I (Wendy) caught up with two ladies helping us by selling our jewellery.  Virginia Dixon is on the board of the Langtang Valley Health project which provides primary health and emergency medical care to people living in the Langtang Valley region.  Every year, Virginia and her tireless board organise a range of fund raising activities and an auction is part of these.  This year she selected some Samunnat jewellery from our turquoise and black and white range to coordinate with pashminas to auction.  They looked fantastic packaged up and the women who made the winning bids seemed delighted with their purchases!Virginia heard about Samunnat from our dear friend and incredible supporter Sarah Bartram.  Sarah has taken our jewellery to so many places and we can't thank her enough for her support!  She is based near Australia's capital city Canberra but travels widely, visiting gallery owners and attending markets, selling our products and many other gorgeous items.  It was wonderful to see her in action and to meet people who bought our jewellery.  People were so interested to hear about the process and to know how the money was used. We would not survive if it was not for the support of people like Virginia and Sarah, Mel and Yohann at Surya, Sacha at Red Earth in White Cliffs, Sally at Albury Picture Framers, our friends at the Art Vault in Mildura, Robin at Breathing Colours Gallery and the gang at the Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery to name some of our angels.And talk about six degrees of separation! Sarah's husband Geoff Bartram is on the board of Langtang Valley Health and was part of the team who made the first Australian ascent of Mt. Everest in 1984.  In 1980 he led a group to Everest base Camp. This group included a young Australian man who came home and showed his trekking slides to a few people including a former student of his next-door-neighbour.  In the fullness of time*, the young man and the student fell in love, got married, had a family, moved to Nepal for a while and in 2007, met up with Kopila and learnt about Samunnat.  The rest, as they say, is history....*Long but romantic story depending on who you ask!