Gulu Fashion

When an expat arrives in Gulu, they stick out. No kidding. But it’s interesting to watch the transformation from newbie to seasoned ex-pat. A great way to chronicle this is with fashion. The newbie has all the gear – a walking throw back to colonial times, ala banana republic: multi-pocketed cargo pants and vests with ridiculous amounts of buckles, sunglasses, goofy hats with flaps and nets, top of the line, all terrain tsunami-proof hiking boots, and organic yet somehow nuclear mosquito spray (with deet 99%/spf 99%.) As the Gulu sun leaps into the sky and assumes its el scorchio position, the garb starts to peel away.

After about a month, all that remains are the cargo pants, needed to hold the assortment of mobile phones and piles of 500 shilling coins. Gone are the hat flaps (because venturing out in the sun under any circumstance is just plain D-U-M-B.) Gone is the organic nuclear sun blocking mosquito spray (because it turns out the local breed of mosquitoes enjoy the stuff...with a nice chianti.) Flip flops, skirts and tank tops are the the uniform of the longer term ex-pat. Guys even whip out the shorts on occasion, although that’s never ok anywhere on the planet.

Those in Gulu for a month or two start showing off their latest market fashions. Guys find ironical t-shirts like “Byte me,” and girls get tailors to make them fabulous skirts and tops made of vibrant Congolese wax fabric.

Those who’ve been in Gulu longer than a couple of months begin to notice and respond to the fashion of the indigenous. That’s where I am. I dress to the 9s, because women here dress to the 9s. I attempt to match them cute dress for cute dress. My happiest moment in the morning when I get to the office is if I earn a “Jessica, you are smart” comment. This sends me soaring for the rest of the day. As my colleague Florence recently mused, “you don’t dress like the other whites. You are smart.” Woo hoo!

Don’t get me wrong, I went through each phase described above. On my first trip to Africa I had survival gadgets stropped to every convenient buckle. What in the hell was I going to do with a syringe kit? Dunno, but I had one just in case. I went through the dress in the market phase too. Oh, I thought at first, this is why personally tailored and handmade clothes are considered a luxurious status symbol. However, by the third or fourth $8 handmade dress two things happen: 1.) the dresses start to look crooked (because they were) and 2.) I suddenly started to act like Victoria Beckahm at a Versace fitting… ”No, I said scooped neckline and no ruffles on the skirt. This needs to fit tighter on the boobs.” To which the not-so-Versace dressmaker replies, “You Mzungus (chuckle chuckle). You really want things so perfect. (chuckle chuckle chuckle)”

I still throw on the occasional local skirt, but lately my cute dress from H&M competes directly with the secondhand but fab finds of the local women.

The original inspiration for this blog was the t-shirt fashion of Gulu. Gulu is all about humanitarian branding. Like Nike, Adidas, Ralph Lauren and Lacoste in Europe or the US, the latest IEC “brand” is all the rage. You have your Gulu Walk Ts, cancer awareness Ts, malaria/Tb/HIV/AIDS Ts, youth as peacebuilders (farmers, bricklayers, high school grads) Ts, and UMWFO (United Men, Women and Family Organization) Ts. Hayden recently rated UMWFO Ts “best distribution, worst designs.”

Each NGO has a budget for t-shirts. These “limited edition” Ts hit the Gulu high street in a sudden burst (i.e., when donor funding kicks in.) In theory, the direct beneficiaries get the Ts, but in practice NGOs turn a blind eye as the seedy, back-channel T-shirt dealings take place (because, hey, it’s good visibility.) Instead of beneficiaries getting a hold of them, the t-shirts emerge on the backs of the coolest cats in town: the boda boda drivers. These guys ARE the David Beckhams and Will Smiths of Gulu. So cool. So hip. SO Mosquito Nets for Infants. And not any t-shirt will do. Somehow these guys get the hottest Ts first. They’re not only not wearing last year’s Gulu Walk Ts, they’re wearing NEXT WEEK’s Gulu Walk Ts!

And everyone notices, including ex-pats. I can try and mock the crazy t-shirt trend, but more than once I have found myself demanding to know why I wasn’t included in a t-shirt distribution. Nevermind that most of these Ts are Men’s XL and go to my knees.

Case in point: Samson walked into my house a while back wearing a t-shirt that had a caricature 1960s man waving his finger with the quote: “Cut Your Mullet!” I demanded that he give it to me immediately. He complied happily, because he was delighted to receive the latest NRC Camp Management T in the trade. I, of course, knew that I had struck t-shirt fashion gold. I knew I’d be hip in Gulu AND ironically hip on the mean streets of the East Village. Woo hoo!