Two citizens of one of the oldest countries in the world visited Stanford last week to learn, or perhaps relearn, an ancient craft, making soap from goat milk.
The long-time friends of Stanford's Correll family were in the United States to attend the National Prayer Breakfast held annually in Washington, D.C. Afterwards, the Ethiopian couple came to Stanford to see friends and learn the skills necessary to make soap out of goat milk under the skilled hands of Kentucky Soaps and Such soap maker Jessica Towle.
One of the visitors, Salem Kassahun, owns a shop in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa, which focuses on crafts made by women. Kassahun hopes to reproduce the Stanford soap-making operation in a country that has seen unprecedented human suffering from war and famine, and create an economic opportunity for women in her country. With more than 20 million goats in the country, it has a tremendous potential to provide income for the desperately poor.
