Tailor-Made
It goes like this:
One day you weave your way through a crowded market, dodging stares and pickpockets, searching for the perfect fabric. In a small shop off the main road, you find it. You bargain. You buy.
A few days later, your host mom takes you on a winding walk through the back streets of your neighborhood to a small shack where two men are hunched over sewing machines. Stacks of brightly-colored fabrics are balanced precariously on a table. Your host mom talks back and forth with one of the men in rapid-fire wolof. You hand over your fabric and an old dress to use as a model. You say goodbye.
Five days later a boy arrives at your house at 10 p.m. with a plastic bag. And inside, like magic, is a new dress.
Total cost: $21
Total level of awesomeness: immeasurable
(p.s. sorry for the GAWKWARD photographs. this is what happens when you put me alone in a room with a new dress and a camera with a self-timer feature. But I had to share my delight here)
