let me say this; it takes years of practice and experience to wear the clothes women wear here and not get totally undone every time they go outside. It's ALWAYS windy here in Hargeisa (and I suspect that goes for the rest of Somaliland too). I've tried, several times. First, the material which is not entirely cotton but a mix of cotton and synthetics, slips off my head all the time. Since I don't have long hair I cannot tie a piece of cloth around a hair-bun the way the locals do it. I wrapped a big nice colorful towel around my divinely full-figured body and guess what? It kept on slipping off of me just as the one on my head did. We went to the market and got fabric which was then sewn into a traditional S.Land dress (one size fits all). These dresses are longer than I'm tall and what the S.Landers do, they squeeze the access fabric into the waistband of the skirt they are wearing underneath. So, of course I'm doing that too only it does not seem to hold. Every time I get into or out of a car and every time I sit down and get back up, that stuff gets undone and I'm trampling on my own dress when I want to walk away. Add to it the constant wind, I'm totally lost. I can't function with the local Dress-code. The other night when we went out for dinner with Edna, I got into the full gear but let me tell you this; I was more than happy to get out of it again.
that's the bun I cannot make,
the women wear this underneath the hijgab
too long to wear like that...
...that's why they tug it in at the waist
underneath they wear 'plastic'-skirts...
...wholly synthetic and very warm
women walking in the wind...
...holding on to her wrapping
and even though Edna has her
very own style, including the
head-cover, she too is subject to the winds.
So much for now on the topic on dressing.
:-)
L
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