Bui-bui langu / My abaya


Here is finally some photos of my lovely bui-bui. It has been getting hotter lately, so I haven't really felt like wearing an extra layer every day. But it is an interesting social experience to compare people's reactions when I'm wearing it and not wearing it. When not wearing it, I'm being treated as any white person: "Jambo jambo honey, how are you?". When I am wearing my bui-bui, I get comments such as "Umependeza sana" (=I like you very much - this I get also without a bui-bui, but the amount of comments increases from half a dozen of umependezas to maybe two dozen...), "Are you a Muslim?", "Congratulations!", and a lot of salaam aleikums...plus many approving smiles and comments especially from women, something that doesn't really happen without wearing a bui-bui.


Some closer details, with a perfume bottle I also got today - from a shopkeeper who also spoke a bit of Swedish, had been living in Malmo many years ago. My next post is supposed to be on the cosmopolitanism in Zanzibar - this island is such a small world, containing many little worlds in itself. So, I'm off to the Bagamoyo Arts Festival tomorrow! It is very exciting to get away from here also, for a little bit...

Comments

Habiba Ley said…
Hi Riikka,

nice to read someone with the same experience and the same thoughts. You are right. I am often in Zanzibar and I have made the same experience and most of the time I wear my bui-bui when I go out, especially to town. Otherwise I am wearing a Kanga. And .....I feel very good with it and also with the meaning of it.

Take care
kind regards,
Habiba
16 July, 2009 23:31
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21 November, 2009 01:01
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