Many of you read of Zoë Isaacs' ongoing efforts to fund a youth program in Rwanda.

The program still needs your help. we hope that you will enjoy the following story and consider purchasing a unique Rwandan Cow Dung Painting.

While Zoë was meeting with hundreds of children in Rwinkwavu in the impoverished Eastern Province, Henry painted. (No big surprise...)

Certainly he brought back cratefuls of oil sketches that he is developing back here in the studio.

However what might be a more lasting encounter in the art world was Henry's visit to the dung painting women's cooperative in Rwinkwavu, directed by Vestine.

Proving that art is indeed the universal language regardless of media, Henry learned this traditional Rwandan art form. Speaking only his poor French - understood by very few in rural Rwanda - and not a word of Kinyarwanda, Henry created a landscape under the guidance of the very patient and amused local artists.

The technique of dung painting? Cow dung is a rare commodity; extremely few Rwandans can afford even one cow. Learning that Vermont has 'more cows than people', Vestine remarked that we all must be very rich.

The cow dung is collected, dried and stored until needed. At that time it is reconstituted and kneaded into clay like consistency.

The artists begin by creating a linear chalk drawing on a wood panel. The dung is then applied, carefully affixed to the board in small mounded lines to delineate form, about a quarter inch high creating a relief image.

Once the dung 'drawing' has dried in the sun for several days, paint is applied. Traditional colors are almost exclusively used: a burnt orange /red derived by making a paste from the finally ground distinctive soil of Rwanda. Black is made from ground charcoal, and white from chalk or talc. Other pigments are used as available, and when affordable or found.

The dung lines are usually painted a uniform color, often black with the flat open areas of the wood covered in solid single values. Though colors may be mixed, it would be unusual to see any gradation within a single form. The effect is akin to a mosaic or stained glass design. Spirals, stripes, and diamonds are the most common techniques in these deceivingly simple images. Henry's image of the landscape of Akegara, Rwanda though abstracted became something of an oddity in Vestine's shop as it recalled a degree of depiction.

P.S. A Huge Thank You to all of you who so generously bought raffle tickets on a painting by Henry, donated to support the Change the World Kids' projects in Rwanda. The sales totaled nearly eight thousand dollars, and every dollar is already at work rebuilding a sports center and helping to provide education and health care to hundreds of children in the Eastern Province.