Buying fabric at The Beach

Now that I am back in the office five days a week (it's been awhile since this last happened), I gotta get myself some more work clothes.  I'm going to venture into tailored skirts made with African fabric, as I once did a lot of years ago in Ghana.  Mind you, these are not things that white girls can wear outside of Africa.  At least not white girls like me.  We'll see if I can even make it happen here.  Stay tuned, I will post pictures.  Even if my skirt is a bust, surely Jaffa's dress will turn out great.  [Note: All of the fabric is sold in six-yard lengths, so you'd better really like it!]

 

Zeric, on the other hand, wears all kinds of memorable things everywhere, all the time.  After much bargaining with the ladies at The Beach--which is a line of about 40 stands selling fabric on the road to the port--he now has plans to add two more shirts to his repertoire.  Both will include two patterned fabrics: one orange-and-black themed, and one pink-and-gray themed.  We'll see if Eben can get on board and agree to matching shirts with one or both of those. 

 

Thanks to Zeric's commendable observation and research skills, we learned that Dutch wax fabric originated as something that the Dutch intended to export to Indonesia, to offer a less expensive alternative to batik.  It wasn't refined enough for Indonesians, so the Dutch looked for alternative markets, and found them in Africa.  That explains why many of the designs that you see all over Africa look very much like batik designs (and my tattoo).  Nothing like a good colonial connection!

[Check out this article!!  http://www.messynessychic.com/2015/10/30/made-in-holland-the-chanel-of-africa/]

When we had bought enough fabric and Zeric had saved about $13 bargaining with the ladies, we went for a drink at the drink place just behind the fabric sellers.  The baobab tree was enormous.. and it has a corrugated metal 'skirt' under which there is a restaurant.  There were the requisite very cold beer, 45 flies on our table cloth, five semi-stray dogs running around, and the one crazy guy who wouldn't let go of my hand. Overall, a pretty tame day at the market.