Happy Birthday to Me

Today is my birthday and I am happily celebrating it at my sister's home in NM. That is probably the best present I got this year!!! But I also got some other interesting things that I would like to share today. My parents in law just got back from Kenya. They went there on a Safari and loved it. They got to see a lot of wild animals and beautiful plants, and it seems like they also got to do some nice shopping. They sent me these wonderful pieces of fabric with African motives. They are small pieces that I can use in a quilt one day, I really love them! They are batiks, and look very stiff but the colors are amazing. I see the origin of the batiks is Asian, so maybe this is called differently, I am not sure, but the technique seems very similar anyways.
Here are the fabrics:

They remind me to a larger batik that my husband got me when he went to Mali. I really like these two women pounding the grain while carrying a vase and the other one a child in her back. this is very common over there.

And it also reminds me to this other one that I got from my friend from China of these two women that belong to a tribe in the southwest part of China.

What a wonderful day!