Mahaliah Gillian Kowa, a 29-year-old cultural entrepreneur from South Africa, giggled as she admitted that she and her colleague, Chila Smith Lino, 43, of Mozambique, had "attempted skiing" in Taos earlier this year.

"Being born in Africa, one has to have an adventurous spirit," joked Jane Parsons, an art consultant from Zimbabwe, whose northern adventures included gallery hopping but not downhill sports.

The three women from southern Africa — and a fourth, Nomvula Mashoai-Cook — are participating in the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market's first W.K. Kellogg Intern Program.

The program, said internship director Ahdina Zunkel, "is the heart of our own mission, which is the economic and cultural sustainability of folk art worldwide."

Cultural leaders in their communities, the women were selected for the three-year program last year and assisted artists at the 2007 market. They are now back in Santa Fe for four weeks to learn how to produce markets in their home countries.

They are trying out local restaurants (although Gillian Kowa said she hadn't found the food "hot enough"), visiting cultural attractions in the area and being entertained by the local folk art community.

Between the Santa Fe segments of the program, Zunkel, a native of South Africa, visited with the women in Johannesburg and Pretoria, as well as Mozambique, toured possible sites for a collaborative market and worked with the women on identifying qualified artists to participate in this year's market in Santa Fe.

They mulled over how much assistance is appropriate to give applicants. The applications are complicated and, Zunkel pointed out, the "jury wants to hear a good story and they want excellent photos."

The interns will return to Santa Fe for another four weeks before the fifth annual market July 12 and 13.

The internships are funded by a multiyear grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, which includes about $325,000 for the program.

The four women are studying all aspects of the market in detail, from budgeting and fundraising to site planning and logistics, artist selection and hospitality and marketing and public relations.

Many of the lessons will translate fine in their home countries, but some will have to be modified. The biggest difference, the women say, is that while the folk art market relies on 700 people who donate their time to the event, there is no tradition of volunteerism in their world — and individual charitable contributions are rare. "Volunteers are unheard of in South Africa. We only rely on corporate sponsorships and foundations," Gillian Kowa explained.

The interns said they like the system that was used to rate applications for the 2008 market because, according to Parsons, it "takes the emotion out" of choosing artists.

Smith Lino said learning how to earn income from activities at the market site, such as sales of food and water, would be helpful in Mozambique.

"The presenters show everything we have to do so we can drink (it in). Back home, we will see what we can use or how we can change it and use it in our realities," she said.

Between now and late June, the interns will be focusing on their own markets: the Harambe Afrika in South Africa, the ATKA Traditional Arts Festival in South Africa, the Feira Nacional de Artesanato in Mozambique and the Harare International Festival of the Arts in Zimbabwe.

Zunkel predicts the number of such markets will multiply exponentially through the internship program. "Hopefully they will find ways to teach others so that artists have more and more markets to come to," she said.

Contact Anne Constable at 986-3022 or aconstable@sfnewmexican.com.