Our summer vacation fumble has meant spending our down time in Kinshasa. We've managed to fill the days riding bikes, painting the walls, baking pretzels and basically driving each other crazy. Now that it's time for school again, stocking up for supplies has meant trips to the market downtown to load up on sneakers, soccer gear and at least one respectable pair of jeans.
Shopping in the big market has usually been an excursion reserved for buying vegetables- a slightly better quality, more selection and somewhat cheaper prices (but oh what you pay with the heat, the crowded streets and the bargaining.) I have, occasionally, looked over some clothes and shoes and purchased a few things in moments of need. (One year the boys were especially hard on their feet, which required a few unplanned trips for sneakers.)
This year we had the pleasure of being escorted to a different area of the market, one I hadn't seen before as it required walking down a long street and turning off into one of those secret hidden alley ways- the kind that are fronted by a few clothing stalls and umbrellas and perhaps skirted by a vegetable or fruit stand. They appear to be nothing more. But once you make your way behind them and turn onto a little footpath you are bombarded with......orange.
There is no experience of color explosion quite like what happens when you turn off the black, gritty street filled with the gray smoke from taxi buses and the muddy browns and washed out whites of dirt and garbage piles and step inside the walkway of the clothing market. Brand new clothes- not the American hand-me-downs that myth #24 suggests all Africans are always wearing. Nope. Strong, bold oranges, blues and greens shouted at me from every direction.
So this is where all those incredibly chic, impossibly svelte Kinshasa beauties find their wear. Skinny jeans, beaded tops, star studded tanks, denim skirts faded in just the right places- all hanging from the rafters. Each stall sported a line of clothing hung one under another and covering every inch of the allotted space. Some stalls barely had room for the vendor and others could comfortably fit two or more browsers. Around some corners you could even find a boutique- a little store with a step up and real walls, a real floor, even shelves to show off the merchandise. Most of the stalls are constructed of wooden rafters nailed together. The clothing makes up the wall space and sometimes a tarp is draped over the top to form a ceiling. Vendors spend their days calling out to shoppers, enticing them to come in and start bargaining. Some were eating, some were napping, but all were surrounded by newness.
We went to the market three different times- first, just the adults, then with each kid. We figured it would be less overwhelming if their was just one to concentrate on. We wanted to leave them out of it altogether but then decided in order to ensure fit and meet finicky tastes, they'd be better off picking their own things. By the end of those trips, our trusty guide was feeling as overwhelmed and exhausted as the boys.
Myth #37 says Africa is cheap. The fact is 3 African cities make the Top 20 list for expats (Kinsahsa hits a lofty number 19) and 2 African cities make the Top 10 for most expensive cities in the world. This includes the marketplaces, especially mondeles in the marketplace. It means twice as many people calling out (or even grabbing-ugh!) and trying to lure us into their stall and most providing prices twice as high as normal. The bargaining is intense and sometimes, it just doesn't happen. We left a few nice shirts behind with vendors who were unwilling to come down since we were unwilling to go up. No middle ground was found. On average though, we were able to buy a few decent shirts for about $6-$10 and jeans for $12-$15. A similar bargain to what can be found in some Western department stores. Shoes ranged from $10-$20 and we have yet to see how long they'll last. I have a little bit less faith in their durability.
While the clothes are crisp and bright and bold, the selection is limited. Searching for your size can be a bit challenging. Finding something in your size and color choice even more so. The popular style for men in Kinshasa is the button up shirt. The popular style for my boys is the polo. So, finding something in their size, their color choice and their style was triply challenging. But in the end, we did manage to walk away with enough to make them happy, feel sporty and new for those important first days of school and learn a little bit about how the other half live.
I add that last part mostly in reference to our guide, who had a chance to experience what it's like to be white in Africa. Emotionally exhausting is the verdict. He learned to suck up the provocations and maintain calm (the first day- when it was just us adults, he did get into a few arguments but took it as a lesson learned and proceeded with quiet dignity on the next few trips.) He learned which vendors would give a fair price, which could be bargained with and which were stubbornly unreasonable. He also learned what it's like to have people talk to you, stare at you and state out loud whatever comments pass through their minds because they assume you can't understand the language. Or maybe they are just expressing themselves and don't really care if you can understand or not.
The boys, of course, got a chance to see that there are plenty of hip, crisp clothes available in Kinshasa and everyone is not wearing their brother's cast offs or sporting imported clothes from Dubai (Of course, the market duds came imported from somewhere... I'm referring to the other kind of importing that happens when their friends travel for vacation- or for the weekend!- and bring back suitcases filled with clothes and shoes and other goodies.)
The last little thing I saw in the market place that filled me with glee was the tea guy. I had images of home (West Africa home) when I saw him making his way down the crowded walkway carrying a small bag of plastic cups and two thermoses. I suppose, hygienically speaking, the plastic cups are improvement to the glass tea shot cups supplied by West African tea carriers, and I am not entirely certain he will do the aerating - now that I am writing this, I am wondering if he even had tea. Plastic cups and hot beverages don't mix. But in the moment, in those few seconds that I glanced at him before he disappeared, I recognized him as the tea guy. And it made my heart happy.
I guess there will always be another myth left to uncover.
