Happy Birthday Tad!

I have been consulting with my co-workers all week on what to get Tad for his birthday. Clothes were definitely the consensus. Clothes in traditional West African style can be bought ready made or fabric purchased and made by a tailor. Different countries and regions in Africa are known for different kinds of cloth and styles.

We discussed whether to buy cloth and have something made, what type of cloth, and what style of clothing., where to buy fabric, what tailor to use. To have something made, I needed measurements so searched of someone in the office close to Tad’s size. Osman was the closest. The next step was to buy fabric.

In the end, it was decided that I needed to go to Big Market. Nathlyn and I had already planned to go shopping for ingredients for groundnut soup so fabric shopping was added to the agenda. She’s going to teach me to make this popular Salone (Sierra Leone) dish.

This afternoon (we follow embassy hours so are off after 1pm on Friday), we went to Big Market to look for cloth. Big Market is all the way to the center of town near the State House and other government buildings.

On the way, we passed the famous Cotton Tree – a landmark in the founding of Freetown.

Amazingly, it is full of huge bats. Best not to linger under this tree for risk of bat poo on your head.

Also it is the most enormous tree.

Here is the Big Market – an indoor traditional craft market.

Inside are many stalls with lots of traditional crafts for sale. Downstairs they have jewelry, pottery, baskets, carved masks, etc. The fabric and clothes are upstairs. I went to Big Market last weekend with a couple of other visiting staff. It’s stifling hot and the sellers are quite aggressive with foreigners. After leaving, I realized I hadn’t taken any pictures – it was so stressful. I did buy a few items including a couple of batik wall hangings of typical scenes. I skipped the elephants and giraffes since they don’t actually live in this part of Africa.

I liked the market scene with crowds of people carrying all kinds of things. The main difference in Freetown is the motorbikes, cars, and trucks along with the people.

And this one since it is common to see people (usually women) carrying things on their heads and also to see women with babies tied on their backs.

Today the experience at Big Market was completely different. Since I was with Nathlyn, we went directly to someone she knows. She knew how much money I had and roughly what I was looking for. She easily held off shop owners and did all the bargaining. I bought two pieces of gara cloth (batik or tie-dyed in Sierra Leone) and a shirt.

Gara cloth: The two middle ones I got today, the other two I got last week at a shop near were I work. Deciding which to buy is VERY difficult. And they’re not even clothes yet – that’s the next step.

Also i got a really cute little bag made in Ghana.

But the whole point of going to Big Market all the way in the center of town was to get something special for Tad. After having the shop owner’s son try on several shirts, I settled on one made of “country cloth” – material hand woven in Sierra Leone.