Kente cloth is a famous product of the Akan people who live in south Ghana. We drove to Adanmowase, a village northeast of Kumasi, to see how it's made.

Our tour began in the Kente Visitors Centre, where a guide wearing a traditional ten-yard cloth showed us how to spin the thread onto bobbins:

Then we went outside, where we helped to lay out the warp:

There are many looms in the village. Some are indoors; some are merely sheltered from the rain.

At each loom, a weaver sits on a stool, the apron bar above his lap. He uses his feet to control the weave harness while tossing the shuttle from one hand to the next.

But photographs don't do justice to the speed at which the weavers work — so here is a brief video:

Adanwomase is also home to a cocoa farm. There, we paused in a grove of cocoa trees (Theobroma cacao). Our guide opened a cocoa pod for us. He invited us to sample the seeds ("suck, don't chew", he advised us), to wash our hands with black soap made from cocoa, and finally to moisturize our hands with the cocoa butter.

We also toured the village proper.

At the end of every guided tour is a gift shop, and Adanwomase is no different. The Woman, after haggling over quantity and price, purchased a single cloth whose pattern caught her eye.

According to our guide, each pattern of Kente cloth is uniquely named, and each name carries its own symbolism. Newly-conceived patterns are named twice a year, when the weavers visit the clan chiefs to suggest names that the chiefs are asked to approve.

When she asked the name of her cloth's pattern, The Woman was told it was Makomaso Adeae, which in Akan means "My Heart's Desire".