It seems unfair that Adam and Eve, in a fit of rebellion and with all the different patterns and sizes and styles of fig leafs to choose from, condemned the rest of us to a seemingly never-ending struggle to clothe our bodies. Fig leafs are hard to come by in Uganda. My stand-in Eden is a place called Owino.
Owino is a clothing market in Kampala, a sort of Goodwill meets mudslide, a magical place where the poignantly named and fun to watch “pre-grabby-grabby-warm-up-time” is necessary preparation for buying Diesel jeans that cost three dollars and are 100% guaranteed to fit depending on how much weight you’re willing to lose or gain. Peace Corps Volunteers emerge from Owino like children from an underwater breath holding competition. I lasted three minutes! Oh yeah? Well I lasted FIVE minutes! AND I kept my eyes open!
The pre-Owino warm-up basically consists of a friend grabbing at you until you become physically unaware you’re being grabbed at all. I think it’s designed around some principal of psychology, the same one that says you stop feeling the sensation of your t-shirt a few minutes after putting it on. Which is actually a useful phenomenon until you suddenly panic and think, hey man, did I forget to put on a t-shirt or what? Because I’m noticing a definite lack of t-shirt sensation.
The worst part about Owino is really not the grabby-grabby time. Who couldn’t use an extra bit of human touch? It’s not the slipping around in mud or the intense feelings of claustrophobia or the people yelling “Baby muzungu (foreigner)!!” or “Ireland!!” or “Michael Jackson!!” in my direction. I didn’t really mind that time a stranger/reverse baby snatcher suddenly handed me his baby and then disappeared for half an hour. I smiled when a vendor told me, No Germany, you’re too fat for that one….try this one. I really was too fat for that one. I blame the hearty, carpe diem diet of my German people. No, the worst part about Owino is when you actually find something you like, meaning, at least for me, something that’s stain-free unless the stains enhance the pattern, hole-free unless I can think up a good use for the hole, and not made for children or life-sized dolls. Of course if the life-sized dolls were especially stylish, that’s another story.
The problem with finding something you like in Owino is you can’t let on that you like it and you have to be willing to walk away from it. The problem with me is I need Botox, not just because 17 months of living on the equator has created quite a storyline on my face but because when I like something it’s completely obvious and I absolutely have to have it. So while other volunteers walk away with good deals, I find myself paying ten or more dollars for a dress with an authentic $1.99 Goodwill tag and a hole that, fingers crossed, will holster my Pez dispenser. Ten dollars! Keep in mind ten dollars can buy you a lot of great and useful things on this side of the world, be it ten pot leaf belt buckles or twenty hair extension ponytails in whatever shade of black your heart desires. Like I said, useful. Oddly enough, upside down pot leaf belt buckles do resemble fig leafs. Maybe this is Eden after all.
Fig leaves, yes. Apples, no. Do a search: The First Scandal.
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