One afternoon after our usual trip back fro Consol Homes, we decided to venture out and put Memore into god use. We asked him to take us to the Central Market so that we could buy some fabric. We had found that women in Malawi rarely wear pants. There were normally dressed in skirts or brightly coloured fabric wrapped around their lower bodies. The cloth is beautifully decorated with different patterns and styles, each for only MK400. With this task in mind we directed Memore through parts of Lilongwe he was quite unfamiliar with, in search of the market. Easier said than done.
20 minutes later found the four of us standing in a sea of people in the heart of the market. Not only were there thick clouds of dust, but random men from stalls took turns poking their heads out to cat-call us. At this point we were pretty much lost.
The puzzled looks on our faces were probably very evident because soon enough a middle aged business woman asked us if we needed assistance. We explained that we wanted to buy some fabric and she informed us we were in the entirely wrong section of the market. This was already obvious to us seeing that we were surrounded by hardware supplies mixed with the pungent smell of fish. The lady was very nice and took us to the correct section of the market.
Upon entering, there were mountains of fabric piled high on tables stretching far into the back of the market. Women were up beckoning us urgently to their tables attempting to offer us the “best fabric” (p.s. the patterns were pretty much the same at all tables). In no time we had chosen our patterns and navigated ourselves out of the market to meet a completely amused Memore waiting for us in the parking lot. I can’t wait to wear my fabric out, maybe that will stop some of the loud cries of “asungu!”
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