27/08/2026
A DAY IN USAKOS ✏️🖤
I arrived in Usakos with a rather simple invitation.
Come and draw.
Karen had invited me to facilitate the first of what we hope will become many creative gatherings in the community. Her vision is bigger than a drawing workshop. It is about bringing people together, sharing skills, and creating new possibilities through creativity.
We gathered at Nubeb Chalets Restaurant, where the tables slowly filled with paper, pencils, charcoal, coffee and tea.
And then the ladies arrived.
Some came with a little uncertainty.
“I can’t draw.”
“I can’t even draw a stick figure.”
But that is the funny thing about drawing.
You don’t actually have to know how to draw.
You just have to learn how to look.
We started with the things around us. Shapes. Shadows. Objects. Little details that had been there all along, quietly waiting to be noticed.
And slowly, the pencils began to move.
The hesitation disappeared.
Lines became forms. Forms became drawings. And by the end of the day, there were women holding up pieces of work they had made themselves, looking at them with the wonderful realisation that perhaps they could draw after all.
Perhaps they could make things.
Perhaps there were more creative possibilities waiting for them than they had imagined.
In between all of this, there was a beautiful braai, potato salad, good coffee, plenty of tea, conversation and laughter, all thoughtfully organised by Karen.
And somewhere between the charcoal-covered fingers and the shared lunch, I realised that this was about much more than learning to draw.
It was about gathering.
About learning a skill that can grow into something more.
Something that can become art, confidence, a new creative outlet, or perhaps even something that can one day be shared, exhibited or sold.
This was only the beginning.
And I left Usakos feeling incredibly grateful to have been invited into this chapter of its story.
Here’s to more people discovering what their hands are capable of. ✏️🖤
