Kente and the Weavers of Bonwire

In the village of Bonwire, in Ghana, there is a sound you can hear from the road.

Clack. Clack-clack. Clack.

It is the sound of wooden looms, dozens of them, under the shade of the trees. Men sit at them with threads stretched out in front of them like the strings of a harp, working the pedals with their feet and passing the colours through with their hands.

What they are making is kente.

Kente does not come off the loom as a big sheet. It comes off as a narrow strip, only about as wide as your hand. Strip after strip after strip. Then the strips are sewn side by side, and only then does the cloth become wide enough to wrap around a person, blazing with gold and green and red and blue.

And here is the part that surprises people.

Every pattern has a name, and every name means something. There is a pattern that means *one person does not rule a city*. There is one that means *nothing is impossible*. Wearing kente is a little bit like saying a sentence out loud without opening your mouth.

The old story says that two hunters from Bonwire were walking in the forest when they stopped to watch a spider making its web. They stood there for a long time, watching how the thread went over, and under, and over, and under. Then they went home and tried it with raffia, and then with silk, and that is how the weaving began.

The weavers are still there. The looms still clack under the trees.

And somewhere in Ghana tonight, a cloth is being finished that says something kind, in a pattern, without a single word.

Goodnight, Bonwire. Sleep well.