Sara and Elizabeth attended eBay Live in Boston, our favorite city. Friends teased us, calling it the Africa Direct show....the opening night keynote address with Meg Whitman, Bill CObb, and Rajov from Paypal, included a video on eBay Giving Works, which featured two sellers, one of which was us.  A film crew had come to Denver, interviewed Elizabeth and Sara, photographed all of us at work here, and also gone to Boulder to shoot customers and friends Mark and Anna Holland, as well as interviewing the marketing manager from Heifer International in New York.  So we were up on seven movie screens for the crowd of 10,000.

Giving Works, eBay's Charity Auctions, is a cause dear to our hearts.  Elizabeth has been on their advisory council for two years, and Africa Direct has increased their number of charity auctions dramatically.  We were surprised and touched to receive an award from them, the Golden Ribbon award, for our contributions to the program.

Each year, eBay honors five of their tweve million sellers with the COmmunity Hall of Fame award.  This year, Africa Direct was one of the winners, and were presented the award at the Gala by Meg Whitman and Bill Cobb.

What a weekend!!

AFRICA ITINERARY: As you read this, Sara and Eliza are enjoying the wonders of Africa and will return in early August.  Two of their daughters, Cindy and Sara Lee, and their grandson, Taylor will join them soon. In the meantime, Sara Lee, who just got her driver's license, is setting world records for finding reasons to drive a car.
 
Sara and Elizabeth will go to Capetown, then to Lusaka, Zambia, staying with their close friend, Leonissah Munjoma, who is working on projects for the conservation of the Zambezi River Basin. In Zambia, they will visit an orphanage, and coordinate visits to rural areas for basket buying through the U.S. Ambassador from Zambia.
 
Then to Johannesburg, where the rest of the family will join them. A trip to Kruger National Park (where chauffeur Sara can practice driving on the "wrong side of the road" before hitting big travel distances, and then into Swaziland where they'll visit their friends at Tinstsaba Basket co-op and see the trainees off for their AIDS educator training (and stock up on baskets and basket earrings!)  On to an orphanage, and then several days with close friend Dori Angus Verhoeg, owner of Indiglizi Gallery.
 
Leisurely wanderings through Kwa Zulu in search of baskets, beadwork, and old friends will include shark hunting in Durban for their intrepid grandson, Taylor.    Everyone will return home the first week in August, with two twenty-foot containers of our purchases   following shortly thereafter...if all goes well!
 
While Sara and Elizabeth are gone, John, Audrey, Mark, Carl and our newest addition, Andrew, will continue to keep the home fires burning.  Please buy!  Otherwise there will be nowhere to put the contents of the containers!
 
 Andrew Tonkery is our new guy on the block, and will be heading up our photography department.  He is a recent graduate art major with passions for traveling, mountain biking, and portrait photography.