I have resisted buying pagne (the typical African cotton waxed fabric) for quite a while. Everywhere you go in the markets, the patterns simply dazzle you - and make you realize that you could never wear most of them anywhere else outside Africa. Even more so, as the ones they consider 'high quality' and that are exorbitantly expensive seem like quite some cheap plastic table cloths to us. In one attempt last fall, I did get some green-based fabric, and took it to a tailor in this isolate village in Congo (the idea was to help the local women's cooperative there, without knowing that the 500 women had a man-tailor). The result was a total catastrophe - I had asked the guy to combine some cuts from several designs he had on the wall, explaining it in terms he could not have understood (I wanted to dress to be flared, 'like a salad', and then I realized he didn't not know what a salad was, so I said in turn 'make it like a cabbage', and that's exactly what he did...) Oh well, the finished product was anything BUT what I had imagined, but at least it is wearable around the house, and it did make for a nice photo op (see below).
After that experience, I refrained for the next few months, until last weekend, when I was stranded in Goma (after another trip to the field had been canceled.) Slightly bored one day, I asked my new friend, Dr. Anny (who always wears these mind-boggling dresses) to take me to the market to purchase some stuff. It was quite a crazy day, as the place was invaded by the Uruguayan UN contingent - men looking for shorts - and this one Romanian girl who could NOT stop buying completely unwearable things. That's what I thought, at least, because it turned out I did wear my first Congolese dress in public just yesterday, at the beach in Rwanda. The lovely day out, with my Italian and American colleagues/friends - Veronica and Stacy - was quite something, and it certainly gave me the best opportunity to put on outrageous colors and feel totally at home :-)
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