Tanzania Wears Prada

Brand names.  Americans love them. Abercrombie and Fitch, Banana Republic, Columbia, GAP, Nike, Talbot, Birkenstock. Fashion is important in America, especially to younger people.  Social status is defined by the names on the tags of your clothing.  Consumers faithfully return to their favorite stores, spending a fortune on a pair of blue jeans.  Many even fall into debt because of their want for the best, newest clothing.

In Tanzania, appearance is as, or perhaps even more, important than in America.  But people here aren’t concerned with brand names.  A different kind of style reigns.  It doesn’t matter who made your clothes, or so much how they look or fit.  What matters is that you are wearing nice clothing.  Everyone wants to look ‘sharp’ and respectable.  Brand names mean nothing to Tanzanians.  Clothing is clothing.  Having an outfit that matches isn’t key.  But your overall appearance is essential.  It doesn’t matter who designed your dress slacks just as long as they’re ironed and creased properly.  Westerners have the stereotypic image of an African child in a baggy, tattered shirt and old flip-flops.  This stereotype is wrong.  Sure, you can find children dressed like this.  But anyone who can afford it, dresses well.  You won’t find anyone wearing sweat pants and torn sweatshirts for anything other than working out.  People place much importance on looking good.  Not on having the right brand names or latest fashions, but on the statement that you have taken care to look your best. 

Though Western clothing has become a dominant style in Tanzania, tradition still holds on.  Traditional dress is still apparent, especially for women.  Custom-made dresses cut from richly patterned fabrics are sewn with old Singer machines on street corners.  These dresses come in countless styles and have a truly African flavor.  Swaths of fabric known as khanga are wrapped around the the waist as a skirt are sometimes worn with the Western T-shirt.  Many Maasai, a tribe in East Africa, completely refuse to wear anything Western and proudly display their traditional shúkà dyed deep red and blue.  On the coast, where Arabic influence is apparent, men wear white tunics with matching caps and women are hidden underneath floor-length burkas. 

Clothes shopping is a mêlée of noise, heat and colour.  There are no shopping malls and clothing boutiques here.  Buying clothes must be done from a secondhand clothing market.  The clothing market near where we live sits atop red African soil and under the brilliant equatorial sun.  It’s quite expansive, extending a area comparable with that of a Western shopping mall.  The sharp smell of second-hand clothing permeates but doesn’t repel.  Wooden lean-tos with tarp roofing house ever type of clothing imaginable.  Some specialize in women’s blouses, others in blue jeans and others in hats.  In some, clothing is displayed from wire hangers and in others, clothing is left in rumpled heaps for the shopper to sort through.  Other vendors don’t have the convenience of a lean-to and pile clothes on low tables or on tarps spread on the ground.  Women with fanny-packs of small bills yell out prices like auctioneers and school-girls dig through piles of shirts for something that suits their fancy.

All clothing that passes through these markets is second hand, some used more gently than others.  Brand names are stuck next to nameless designers, with nothing to distinguish the two.  For some articles of clothing, it is clear how they got here – stained or torn or so terribly out of fashion they shouldn’t ever be allowed to be worn again.  Other garments are hidden treasures that don’t even show signs of wear.  Some obviously came straight from the garage sale, 25¢ masking tape price tag still attached while others could have walked right out of Macy’s.  The ones in better shape fetch higher prices - $2 for a shirt and $7 for a pair of pants at most.  If you’re lucky you can find great deals in the piles of clothing that would cost you only pennies.

Finding suitable clothing is somewhat challenging in this environment.  For starters, you have to find something that you like.  Once that is accomplished, does it fit?  Is it clean?  Is it damaged at all?  Finding an article of clothing that meets all of these requirements can be tricky.  But once you find something that works, you have a distinct feeling of accomplishment. 

Pole na Mazoezi

By Cindy Johnson

Pole (Po lay) is a Tanzanian expression that has no equivalent in English. It is a way of expressing sympathy for other’s work or difficulties in life. It is a wonderful and pervasive expression in Tanzania. It is a common greeting for roadside travelers burdened with a heavy load or firewood or water or for a friend whose car has broken down. It is a nice way of saying to someone, ‘I see you suffer from the inevitable burdens of life and I feel empathy.’

As I walk up the mountain toward my goal, the gate of Kilimanjaro National Park, I am greeted in many ways including “pole”, as villagers express empathy for my trudge up the mountain. “Asante, na wewe pia” I respond, and you too. The very idea that these villagers are encouraging me to keep trudging, gives me extra energy, but at the same time feels utterly ridiculous as I watch them also trudge up the mountain beneath a load of firewood balanced carefully on their head. Their burden is not by choice as mine is. I am exercising; they are working.

Exercising intentionally is something that mzungus (white people) do. We are joined by a small minority of Tanzanians who have similar positions behind computers or otherwise no longer have to harvest their food or fuel. Here on a college campus this includes many students, faculty and staff. But most Tanzanians have no need for physical exercise and must find it amusing to watch this mzungu professor marching up the mountain. They are physically strong with endurance that exceeds most athletes. Nonetheless they greet me warmly and offer encouragement.

I watch my fellow exercisers. A man pushes an old bike up the mountain laden with firewood that extends a meter in each direction from his bike. A young girl, no more than 8 years old, expertly balances a bucket of water atop her head as she heads for home. A woman squats while collecting forage; she is limber and flexible. This is what our bodies were meant to do, not run on treadmills.

I have never enjoyed exercising more than here on this mountain. Not only am I constantly encouraged and inspired by the many ‘pole’s I receive, but by the beauty of life. Walking (and running) has allowed me to explore my home on this mountain. With the assistance of students (lest I get lost!), I have explored villages, river gorges, paths that meander amidst banana plantations and stately coffee plantations. Everywhere I am greeted warmly and invited to partake in the local brew, mbege (millet beer). Most know me as the professor from the college. I am shadowed by children anxious to try out their English, wishing me ‘Good Morning’, regardless of the time of day. With few exceptions, I listen to villagers twitter and giggle with mirth as I pass; my Kiswahili is comical at best and I am happy to brighten their day.

Life as it exists here on the mountain is rich and full. Children, neatly dressed in school uniforms and in no hurry, walk home for chores and homework. A small boy dressed in winter ski cap slaloms down the mountain on his imaginary skis and his crude stick poles. A villager under the influence of too much mbege, calls loudly after the mzungu. Pods of women, sharing the day’s news, meander slowly up the mountain. Theirs is a sharing that has happened for centuries; burdens made lighter by comrades. An older man tugs at the lead rope to his cow, switch in hand trying to maneuver man and beast up the mountain. The butcher peers past the carcass that hangs from the ceiling of his small stall, watching and waiting for customers. Chickens skitter across the road and dogs sulk in the shadows. Blue Sykes monkeys perform wild aerobatics teasing me to watch their antics.

Omnipresent, is the mountain. My routes include up and down, both are inevitable. I can choose, up first and then down or vice versa, but always they come together. The mountain provides encouragement, inspiring glimpses of fresh snow contours or full throated cheers of magnificent clouds playing peek a boo with the summit in the colors of twilight.

It was the mountain that provided the inspiration, along with enthusiastic coaching from students, for me to enter my first ever marathon. Yup, a marathon…. Err half marathon. The Kilimanjaro Marathon is one of the premier African marathons that happens to run up the very road I live on at the college. Frankly, I have never understood why anyone would want to do a marathon…long training, boring and/or repetitive routes, hard on the body, etc. However, since I have been blessed with an awesome ‘gym’ on this mountain, I have found my excursions nothing but refreshing, inspiring longer and faster treks. I laughed at the first suggestion of me doing a marathon, but simultaneously and secretly made a promise to myself.

As it turns out, the Kilimanjaro Marathon is a big deal attracting over 3000 runners and 36 countries. There were more mzungus than I’ve seen in a while, but we were outnumbered by Africans of all kinds including those who sit behind computers and those who train professionally. Without contest, the fastest were Africans (Kenyans). Me, I coveted the beautiful medal and knew I could do it just to get the medal. Well 21 kilometers in 3 hours got me a medal, and a time only 30 minutes behind most of my students (1 minute for every year of age difference?). Heck it was easy…. Every few kilometers there was a stand issuing water, food and dripping sponges not to mention the Tanzanian music blaring loudly. It was a hoot, like a big moving party. I never expected it to be fun; hurt yes, but fun? My mostly solitary treks across the countryside had prepared me physically, but I simply didn’t anticipate the fun. Everyone was encouraging and friendly, how could one not succeed given such a huge cheering squadron?

My student coaches have all but signed me up for the next full marathon. Me, I am content to savor my one and only marathon medal (and t-shirt). I will keep trekking across this beautiful countryside soaking in life in its wonderful beauty, diversity and glory. To all you marathoners or marathoner ‘wanna be’, “pole na mazoezi”, I extend my empathy for your exercise.