The girls and I had our first tailor made outfits made here in Africa this week! The girls outfits turned out adorable and mine is not too shabby either!!! Now let me describe the process of getting these made! First off my language teacher mentioned that she had some outfits made in our town one day (see..she travels to our town each weekend on a bus to teach us for the week and then goes home on the weekends). Since I am pretty new to the area (the understatement of the year) I asked her if she could go with meand the family to buy material and go to this tailor to help translate. We first had to go to the "nicest" material store in our town (according to our language teacher). It happens to be across the street from our home and you have to walk through the fish market to get to the material store. Poor Macy can hardly stand the smell of the fish market and pinched her nostrils together for most ofour time there!!! Of course while we are in the shop we draw a huge crowd of kids that are not used to seeing white people in their local market! We did have fun trying to communicate which material we liked, since our language teacher lets us try to communicate to them before she has to jump in and save us!! The store was probably the size of a small store in a mall, like a Claire's boutique, with cloth folded up neatly according to its quality. I was also surprised to find out that the owner of the material store is actually a close neighbor of ours and I have actually been in their courtyard to visit and practice language!
So..we purchase our material and walk back through the crowded market to get back into the truck and drive to the tailor. We drive about 5 minutes down the road to get there. We go inside and enter into a room about the size of a small bathroom. There are 2 couches lining two of the walls and a large dresser across from the door with lots of plastic bags just thrown in it with finished outfits in it. We greet the lady that is sitting in there and I just assume it is another customer waiting from someone to appear in the doorway that leads to the back of the shop. My language teacher thrusts magazines into my lap telling me to find a design I like so I can show the tailor what I want my outfit to look like. Now...I am guessing that these magazines I am looking at at this point are the equivalent of high fashion magazines in Africa because I have not seen anyone wearing this kind of intricate outfits while I have been here. It takes a while for me to find one that I like and then my language teacher tells me that if I can't find anything I like I can just draw something or describe what I want and they can make it! After thinking for a few minutes, she asks me what is taking me so long to figure out what I want. (Remember, I am thinkingthe whole time that we are waiting for someone to appear and ask us to leave the "sitting room".) By this time I am sweating, the girls are sweating, and Brad is sweating and I am about ready to leave. However, the lady sitting across from me the whole time is the owner of the store and has been waiting on us the whole time to show/tell her what we wanted. We describe through our translator and a funny game of charades what we want our outfits to look like. She calls a man from the back to come out and measure us in the little bitty room and they take our measurements down and write them on the masking tape that they have stuck on the material. After a few minutes of this, they tell us that our outfits will be ready to pick up the next Wednesday!! (I am not sure how long we were actually there but it was long enough for Brad to leave with the girls for a while to go help our friends jump start their car and come back!)
Brad goes andpicks our outfits up the next Wednesday and they all fit great except for one of mine. I have to take it back and they want me to try it on so they can see what adjustments need to be done. I go into the "back" for the first time and see about 5 or 6 old timey sewing machines! I step behind this green curtain that has huge gaps on each side of it by the wall and put on my outfit, all the while trying not to touch the walls because there were thousands of ants and spiders crawling around me! ugh. I also was trying to keep my white legs from being seen by anyone through the gaps in the curtains since legs are considered to be the equivalent of breasts here in Africa (and there were about 5 men outside that could have easily seen me!). I really haven't minded wearing long skirts that much since being here! Anyways, I get my outfit on and they record the adjustments that need to be made. I still have not gotten that outfit yet because it still needed alterations the second time I went back. Hopefully it will look ok!! Here are the pictures of some of our outfits so far:
Mara wakes up every morning now and wants to put on her "African clothes"!! So sweet!!
Macy announced so sweetly after she got her outfit on that now all she needed was black hair and dark skin! :)
Mine did not turn out exactly as I wanted it too but I thought it was cute enough! We are currently having a few more outfits made and I will post pictures of those when they are done too!
Now, onto other random things other than outfits. Funny story time. Brad decided to guy buy some sand to place in our courtyard around some of the plants we have planted and to make a sand box for the girls to play in. It is course sand, not like the pretty white beach sand. He drove around our town and found a place that looked like it sold sand and it did! After "talking" to the men, one of them motioned for Brad to get in his truck and drive him down the road a few miles. Brad drives along with the other man to the other part of the "sand" business, I guess. Brad motions or tries to communicate that he wants his truck bed filled with sand. After a few minutes, the man motions to Brad to get back in his truck and to go home. Brad is slightly confused and then they motion that they will bring the sand to our house in their own truck. As Brad is driving home, it occurs to him that the only trucks he saw there were massive dump trucks and informs me when he gets home that he has no idea how much sand he just bought for the $30 he just paid!!! No joking...in about 15 minutes a dump truck pulls up in front of our gate and dumps a whole dump truck load of sand in the road in front of our house!!!!!! Ummmm...what!?! It takes Brad and 2 other guys ~ 2 hrs to move all the sand into our yard!!! Needless to say, our yard looks neater and the girls are loving their sand box, which is practically our whole yard right now!!!! :)
Also, I have had a few more successes in my on going struggle with cooking! I made the most delicious spaghetti I have ever ate in my entire life last week! It was awesome! I was so proud of myself! I also have made banana bread 3 times and even taught our language teacher how to make it one evening. I gave her some during one of our sessions and she loved it. She asked me if I would teach her how to make it since she would be purchasing her own oven soon to put in her house. When she came over, she said she thought the bread was so good the first time that she wanted to ask for more but was embarrassed to do so! She asked if this is what all our cakes taste like in the states. Brad chimed in and said that the banana bread was not even close to being sweet as birthday cake and that we, white people, are larger in the states because we eat so much sugar. (true statement, I believe!) I wonder what cooking adventures await me in my African kitchen this week! :)
Oh, I cannot forget what opened in our town this week!!! As Brad was driving down the road he happened to glance over at one of the little "grocery stores" we frequent and saw a gift sent from heaven....a soft serve yogurt machine!!! What?!? In the middle of our little town....YAY!!! He was so excited he stopped and talked to the owners of the shop and to get some, however it was not cold enough yet to produce solid frozen yogurt and they told him to come back later. Of course he goes back later....twice in one day! That day they had chocolate and pineapple flavored yogurt and it was delicious (well, it may not compare to Yogurt Mountain in Memphis) but it is close to heaven here! Yesterday they had strawberry and pineapple! They serve it in small cups without a spoon and it cost ~ $1. Brad decided to take one of our tupperware containers instead and they agreed to fill it up for us for about $4!! Brad said he got the oddest looks when he did this but assured the owners that these white people (meaning us) would probably visit them everyday now! The girls were so excited when he got home with it! So..we enjoyed yummy delicious frozen yogurt in the middle of Africa while we watched Robin Hood on our small computer screen in our living room! What a blessed Friday evening!!
