I know I’m behind on my blogging, but there’s something I want to write about before I give a meatier update on my project here. I want to tell you about shopping. Yes, shopping.
I enjoy shopping, not just for native crafts and fresh fruits at the local markets, but for regular clothes and shoes. This past weekend, I decided I would try to expand my wardrobe a bit here because I’ve been assigned to stay an additional month, but I was really surprised to find out that I had incredibly limited options here in Dar!
There aren’t really any malls here – not like the giant, air-conditioned wonderlands of the US, the Philippines or even South Africa. No, Dar only has a handful of commercial plazas that are home to a myriad of diverse businesses – restaurants, computer shops, mini-bookstores, groceries, and just a few clothing stores. There’s a small Woolworth’s department store in the City Centre, and there are a few boutique clothing stores at Shopper’s Plaza, Oysterbay Shops, and Sea Cliff Village. Most of these boutique shops cater to tourists, so the clothing here is either touristy (with catch phrase t-shirts) or very dressy and pricey (around $50 USD for a shirt!). So after a slightly disappointing trek, I wondered where everyone else shopped, only to find out that…
The cost of brand new clothes from the shops I had visited are all very expensive and out of reach for the average Tanzanian family. [I didn’t even want to pay $70 USD for a linen skirt at Woolworth’s!] So most Tanzanians shop for mitumba – secondhand clothes at the market. Mitumba is clothing that originates from abroad, like the UK or the US and is used. These t-shirts, blouses, dresses, pants, etc. are “throw-aways” from Europeans and Americans – but what I haven’t uncovered yet is if these said throw-aways were originally donated to be given away to the poor. I don’t think it’s really widely thought about (whether or not these are “intended for the poor”) because buying and selling secondhand clothes has become a natural part of the Tanzanian lifestyle. Mitumba provides many people with an easy way to begin a business and families with much more affordable clothing options.
Of course, traditional African or Indian dress isn’t included in this discussion – they’re in a class of their own (somewhat more affordable, of course, for their constituents). So I think I may just continue rotating my current set of clothes as a Westerner, until I feel more comfortable wrapping myself up in a brand new African kanga.
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