Tanzania's Ugliest Kanga, Half Now in Skirt Form

Anyone can dress in a drab and unimaginative yet inoffensive fashion.  Americans, for example, are wedded to their jeans and t-shirt uniforms.   It takes planning and a good dressmaker to be this much of a fashion disaster.  The other half of the kanga is going to a friend of mine in the states, in exchange for a book of raunchy classical Latin poetry.  This seems a fair trade.

I am very pleased with this dressmaker, really.  I had such a fabulous dressmaker in Morogoro, I was worried about finding another lady. They are everywhere, really, but one has to find a good one who can surprise with the arrangement of the fabric.  Also, a good friendly relationship is important.  In this case, the border of the kanga was turned into a waistband and a ruffle along the bottom, which I rather love.  There is a small morning market near the school, and the first time I went there, I got the usual calls of "mzungu"* and gave my usual response, which is a long Kiswahili speech about how I have a name and people should greet me, after all, it's not like I yell "mtanzania" or "mafrica" at people.  The result was that now an entire group of mamas in one corner of this market remember my name, I buy things from them, they help me find things, keep other people from hassling me, I am learning their names, and overall going to the market is now a very pleasant experience.  I asked one of these mamas about finding a dressmaker and she directed me to a friend of hers, who made this skirt for me, after which I had to show it off to the mamas in the market who are my new friends and who all have opinions about what sorts of things I should get made next.   This is why I have too many clothes.  But I abandoned quite a few that I wasn't so pleased with back in Morogoro, so I have to start over now.

*white person/foreigner.  It's nice that my entire character can be summed up in a single word that describes my race that complete strangers can and do yell at me.