The search word that most often brings folks to my blog-doorstep is "pagne". I'm kind of surprised at , but pleased with, this interest in these lengths of cloth that are so important in daily Burkinabé life! The "Pagnes 101" posts I did are the most popular of this blog. In them, I explained what a pagne is, what it can do and , finally, how to wear one. But I didn't show many
pieces of actual cloth. However, as I went on a huge pagne spree yesterday, I now have a few fun photos to share. Not many, sadly, as I managed to drop our camera on the tile floor this morning. The camera, as you may have guessed, did not benefit from this incident. JP is calling it "a stupid accident because you are careless". I prefer to call it " getting to know and respect gravity. "
Anyway, one of the grooviest pagnes out of the eight patterns I got yesterday is this one. Computers! Is it too cute, or what? For some reason, you never see this type of pattern done in multi-color. It's always a sober two-color. Patterns featuring everyday items are pretty common and they follow definite fashions. A few years back, fans were popular- oscillating electric fans in blue and beige. This year, it's old fashioned men's shoes.
But I went with the computers. It's for gifts, as I know people that like computers (Hi mom!) and I thought the fabric could make fun dust covers, or something.


Now here's one that has astounded everyone that I've shown it to. Even my Burkinabé friends find it pretty odd. I found it in a Lebanese pagne shop in the central market. The place was just a big cement block room with pagnes stacked up on the floor. Everything was priced at 4000 for 3 pagnes. It all gave the feeling of a mafia pagne shop selling cloth that "fell off the back of a truck". Kind of strange. But I couldn't resist this one.
Pagne patterns often have names, but nobody seems to know what this one is called. So, I have been calling it "Freakishly Deformed Person Hacked up by a Serial Killer". It elegantly accounts for both the severed fingers and the eyeball located in the palm of the hand.

I'm very entertained by it, but not sure what to do with it. I offered to make the twins some bedroom curtains out of it. With matching pillow shams, even! But they, shockingly, turned me down.

Hey Lynsey- want some for a wrap skirt?
If anyone is brave enough, I'll share.

I am still haplessly emailess. My formerly lively internet existence has slowed down to a pathetic crawl- which is ok, because my life is doing a spastic sprint in all other directions.
We are throwing a big party here at home in less than two weeks. It's supposed to be a "Goodbye Party" celebrating the end of our nine years in Africa, but I think it refers to me saying goodbye to the last shreds of my sanity.
And I won't even mention how it's going trying to sell much of our stuff and get things organised for the move.


My mental state is certainly not helped by the fact that Blogspot is torturing me. Sometimes I'm completely blocked from blogging for hours. Or there are times like right now, when it viciously denies me the right to publish photos with my blog post. And I assure you that I have some very cool photos right now. I went pagne shopping this morning with a friend that owns a tailor's shop and I stumbled across the weirdest pagne design EVER!!! It must be seen to be believed. But you don't get to see it today, apparently. But trust me when I say that you will ENVY my freaky purchase!


On a happier note: today also brought word from, my lovely, bookish pal Ms.B asking in the blog comments section if I have ever read David Sedaris. The answer is: not until quite recently. It just so happens that Aussie Neighbor Tony wandered over today with some back issues of The New Yorker. And one of them happened to have a piece by Sedaris, an hommage to French spiders.
Quite a coincidence, non?
It was a very funny story and I wished, wished , wished to be him! I mean, I wished that I could write funny stories about expat life that are published in The New Yorker magazine. I don't actually want to be a gay man living a spider-infested house in Normandy.

In the previous session, we went over the general history of the pagne and how to wear it. Now I’d like to go into more detail on its many other uses.

1 Baby carrier- The normal position for a baby is tied firmly to her mother’s back with a pagne. Even a newborn is easily carried this way- or at least, the ladies here make it look easy. It takes years of practise to do it really well and girls here start practising early on. You often see toddlers walking around with a corn cob or stick tied onto their back as a makeshift doll. They grow up to be quite skilful, able to do all kinds of tasks with a baby on board.

The child is balanced on the mom’s back and then the pagne is tied or tucked in at the top and bottom corners . From the front, all you see is the pagne covering the mom’s front and a little foot sticking out over each of her hips.

I can attest that it’s quite comfortable for the mom and the children get used to it pretty quickly.

Babies get their arms tucked inside the cloth, so it works like swaddling and , indeed, they do seem to find it soothing. Toddlers get tied on with their arms out. Watch out for hair-pulling, is my advice on that.

2. Gift- The pagne is a great, much appreciated gift in any social setting! If you are invited to a local wedding, you can’t go wrong bringing a set of three pagnes. Ot two or three sets, according to your budget. And as pagnes vary in price from two dollars each to more than 14 dollars each, there really is a lot of choice. Hint: Super Wax Hollandais is THE big name in pagne-dom and expect to pay big bucks. 50 dollars for three pagnes is a common starting point for haggling. If you get down to about 38, you've done well

3. Sunshade- The infrastructure, such as there is, is not really set up for anyone’s comfort. Yes, there are nice, cheap public buses, but the bus stops are often just a metal sign out in the middle of a dusty plain. Not a bench or a stick of shade in sight. In this situation, and the many others that resemble it, a bit of portable shape is very useful.

4. Sand storm protection- The winds of February bring the Harmattan- a strong gale that carries a huge load of Saharan sand. Visibility goes down to nearly zero. Everybody heads for cover. If you are out when it hits, it’s nice to have something to wrap around your head to keep the worst of the dust out.

5. Seating adjustment- wooden benches are always locally made and often boast problematic nails and splinters. And even when they are not frankly dangerous, they are often dirty. And even the clean ones can be uncomfortable, especially if you are a nassara (foreigner) with a bony behind. Having a nice, thick, folded square of cloth to sit on can be a great help- especially if you are invited to a formal event ( wedding, mask festival, etc) where you may be expected to sit for long periods of time.

These are the main uses that a typical expat will find for their pagne. Of course, they are also good for padding the top of your head when you carry a heavy object- but that’s really not to be attempted by the novice.

The final and most sophisticated use of a pagne:

6. Communication!!

Yes, the pattern you wear can send a message! Many pagnes are designed every year. Some of them die out, but some of the patterns become very popular. They even get a name. It might be a simple descriptive word like Ventilateur (for a pagne depicting fans) , L'ordinateur (computer) ot telephone-portables (cell phones!).
Others are much more abstract and complicated. They are phrases like: Si tu sors, je sors. (If you go out, I'm going out), Ton pied ,mon pied. (your foot, my foot) Mon mari est capable (My husband is capable). Maîtresse, laisse-moi mon mari.(Mistress, leave my husband alone) Six bougies (six candles), Gombo-noir (Black Gumbo), Tais-toi-jaloux (Shut up, jealous one!) Dévaluation, Stop-SIDA (Stop HIV/AIDS), Je-cours-plus-vite-que-ma-rivale (I run faster than my rival)..... These are instantly recognisable classics that send a message. If you wear "Mon mari est capable", it is a compliment to your husband's abilities as a provider. But 'Ton Pied, Mon Pied" is a warning to a spouse that if he keeps being unfaithful, his wife will "follow in his footsteps" and cheat, too. So, by choosing one of these patterns to wear, a woman "talks" to her husband, co-wives, her husband's mistresses and her neighbors.

This one is called "The eye of my co-wife" It's all very fascinating and probably seems a bit tricky to navigate. But don't worry that you'll get into trouble for wearing the "wrong" pagne. Just ask if the pagne has a name when you buy it. Most of them don't, especially the less expensive ones.

And that's pretty much what I know about pagnes. Sorry I didn't post it yesterday. I was busy with several projects, which will be the subject of tomorrow's post.

Pagnes 101

“Pagne” is a French word that is used in West Africa to refer to a rectangle of cotton cloth measuring approximately 45 inches wide and 67 inches long (about 1 metre by 2 metres). Here in Burkina, they exist in two main forms: a heavy fabric handwoven on a narrow loom and colored with indigo dyes or a manufactured wax print. The second variety is far more popular despite the fact that it is a relatively recent tradition.

About 150 years ago, Dutch traders were looking to do business with the people of the Gold Coast (now called Ghana) for reasons apparent in the name. At first, they tried trading cheap printed fabrics from Indonesia, but these were rejected by the Africans as too flimsy and unattractive. So, the Dutch developed a cloth adapted specifically to the tastes of West African market - the Wax Pagne was born! It was a heavier grade of cotton and printed with bold, colourful designs. It caught on and quickly became a traditional favourite throughout the sub-continent.

Today, the so-called “Holland Wax” and its imitations are made throughout West Africa. Senegal is a major supplier, but even here in Burkina there is Fasotex making local patterns. They used to be known as Faso Fani, but were notorious for the low quality their fabrics. And African women are VERY picky about the quality of their pagnes and accept nothing shoddy! So, the factory was sold and re-fitted and the new fabrics seem to be acceptable to the local ladies

The patterns of pagnes are amazing. There are geometrics, florals and even designs based on household objects like brooms , fans, and cell phones! There are political pagnes printed with the face and name of local candidates and special event pagnes printed up with the logo and date of conferences and festivals. Even better, you can easily have pagnes custom-printed! Wealthier people often do this for a funeral, having pagnes printed with the photo and name of the deceased. Everyone going to the funeral will purchase (if they can possibly afford it) some of the fabric and have funeral garb made from it!

Above is a special pagne that was printed for a school.

If they can’t afford to have a special motif printed for their event, the folks here love to choose a pagne pattern for their wedding or special event and then have everyone attending buy some of the fabric, so that everyone can have matching outfits. This is considered very, very cool.

But the pagne isn’t just for special events. It’s the workhorse of West Africa!

First of all, it is a basic wrap skirt. Every woman, rich or poor, owns at least one simple rectangle of this cloth. Most own two. You need one to form the basic skirt . The second is used as a baby carrier, sunshade, dust protection, cushion when you carry stuff on top of your head, and when not in use, it serves as a second modest covering over your hip to knee area.

The wealthier woman buys three pagnes (measures) of the same cloth at a time. Then she will have a tailor sew her a “complet”. This means a long skirt, often lined, with a matching top. One pagne is left as rectangle and hemmed at the edges. This “extra” pagne serves as an additional layer OVER the stomach to thigh area of the outfit. This is often called a “petite pagne” and is vital for ladies in a position of respect. A teacher, for example, would definitely wear an extra layer over her tailored skirt or pagne. (NB: As I’ve said several times in this blog, it’s important to keep the hip to knee area well-covered. It’s vital for women, but it also goes for men. Please, please, please don’t come to this country and wander around the streets in your shorts or short skirts. It is SO disrespectful and the Burkinabé are so kind. Please don’t.)

The West African complet can be a hard outfit for the non-African to pull off. It can feel hot and confining, as it is usually lined and often tightly cut to show off womanly curves. There are looser styles, but they often look and feel like pajamas or maternity wear, IMO. I think the easiest and most fun way to wear a pagne is the most common way- as a wrap skirt. Once you get the hang of it, it’s very simple and comfortable. Plus it will get you lots of compliments and make it easy to stike up conversations with people other than street vendors trying to sell you tourist junk.

How does it work? It’s best if you ask a Burkinabé lady to help you. You’ll giggle a lot and have a good time as she gives you pointers on how to make it come out even and not fall off of you in public.

But here are some vital basic hints:

1. Hold one of the short ends to the RIGHT side of your body, haul the fabric around your back and overlap it over the front. The loose front end will be on your LEFT hip. Do NOT do this the opposite way, or people will mock you. Nicely. But still.
2. The top of the pagne is then rolled down. Very thin people can tie the two top corners together. But most women just tuck it under. If you watch women here, you will see that readjusting the pagne is a common, frequent gesture. They are re-tucking and tightening. This is normal- fussing with your pagne is not a sign the you're doing it wrong.

3. Get the two raw ends of the pagne sewn so they don’t unravel over time. It will cost maybe 25 cents to have this done by a tailor, depending on where you live. The long edges of the fabric are already finished and should NOT be hemmed. There is usually writing on these edges denoting the manufacturer. This is considered good and should not be hidden.

4. I recommend that novices, those easily scared and the accident prone get two long strings sewn onto the to the top two corners of the pagne. You wrap, tie and then fold the top over to hide the strings. This is a very secure system and you can’t go wrong.

5. If you are going to be riding a bike or motor scooter while wearing this, you will need TWO pagnes (or a pair of bike shorts or a slip underneath) To prevent your top flap from flying open too far, you’ll want to wrap a second pagne around your tummy to thigh area. You just fold the second pagne in half, so it’s only knee length and you wrap it like the basic pagne. Women that can't afford a second pagne, or are using it to hold a baby ride their bikes with one hand. The other hand clutches the front of the skirt closed. They are good at it. (NB: Frankly, for bike riding, I go with capri pants and a tunic that hits me mid-thigh. It's modest and so much easier. But if you will be teaching out in a village, for example, this might not be the best solution for you. It would probably be better to wear a pagne and develop your skills...........There's lots more to say...... So, tomorrow our course in Basic Pagneology will continue!

Do you have friends that end up in strange places? That send you e-mails from locations that make you scramble for the nearest world atlas, feeling like a grade-A ignoramus?


Yeah-me, too. For me, it's my friend MLW that tends to make me Wiki for my life in an effort (probably a completely useless one. Who am I trying to kid?) not to seem like an idiot.
She's in Aceh right now.


Yeah.


Not that I'm saying that I think you need this link. You probably all know the population of and major exports of this special territory at the northern tip of the island of Sumatra. You are probably capable of pronouncing and even spelling its full name correctly with no outside prompting. ( BTW: it's Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam)


Anyway, there's our dear friend wandering around in the Sumatran jungle and pretty much all I know about the place is what I've read in a Sherlock Holmes mystery: "It was a ship which is associated with the giant rat of Sumatra, a story for which the world is not yet prepared"
Quite ominous, you have to admit.
I worry for her, but from the two emails I have received, it is clear that she hasn't run into any fearsomely huge rats and that most of the problems that she does face can be dealt with using a large square of African cloth.


MLW, as a seasoned adventurer, has visited me twice here in Burkina and she quickly adapted to Burkina-style dress. But even after she left, she found that the cloth used for local wrap skirts are very, very versatile. Indeed, if the author of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy had known about pagnes, we never would have heard so much about towels. Imagine Ford Prefect announcing: "If you want to survive out here, you have to know where your pagne is!"


Here's what MLW has to say about the superiority of the pagne:

"Ode to a Pagne from Aceh."
After a week in Aceh, the blue and orange pagne (with the sort of atomic design) I bought in Ouaga has had more lives than 1000 cats. Some of its incarnations:


-- Lying under the thin blanket in a chilly bungalow near the Alas River, in the heart of the Acehnese rain forest, the pagne adds the perfect layer of warmth for the night.


-- Bumping on a minibus over the horrid Sumatran roads, the pagne is a needed cushion for the bum.


-- Philosophical question: if a tree falls in the forest, blocking the only road across the province,
taking down a live power line with it, how long does Mary Lynne sit on her pagne on the roadside waiting for the chain saw to arrive to cut the tree?
Answer: long enough to watch yet another, bigger tree fall and
block the road as well.


--The skies open as we stand on the side of the road at the hamlet of Ise Ise, and the pagne becomes a raincoat.


-- For the first time, the bendy bendy roads become too much, even with a double dose of motion sick pills. After throwing up out the window, a corner of the pagne cleans my face.


-- After a slippery, muddy trek through dense jungle of the Gunung Leuser wilderness area, we emerge to find two hilltop Gayo farmers, who of course provide us with rice from their hut (starved as I am, I just have a polite bite). The sun grows strong as the men sit and
smoke--Indonesian men giving Burkinabe men a run for their money in the sitting around department--and the pagne becomes a sunshade).


-- At the mountain stream, pagne is, of course, the perfect bathing sarong as the sun sets.


-- Emerge from the mountains to cosmopolitan (in comparison!) Banda Aceh. Sitting at the lovely night market eating rice and rendaang, I spill bandrek--a pink drink of warm spices--on my long sleeved shirt (a tropical climate, but sharia law...). Pagne to the mop-up rescue!

You know you have lived in Ouagadougou too long when:

1. The temperature is 85° F and you agree with your Burkinabé friends that it's really cold.
2. Your medicine cabinet is full of chloroquinine, Coartem and Quinimax because somebody at your house always has malaria. Plus, you know what mebendazole and metronidazole are and aren't afraid to use them.
3. You really like tô
4. The only closed shoes you own are your sport shoes. Everything else is sandals. In fact, you think that a new pair of "tapettes" constitutes formalwear.
5. You can drink Orange Fanta without gagging, even if it’s slightly warm.
6. You think that people that speak only one language are odd
7. You are completely out of gift ideas for your family back in your home country: leather, batik, bronze, carvings, embroidered table cloths, Tuareg silver…you have exhausted every possible type of craft in Burkina.
8. You would never phone anyone between noon and 3 pm. That’s “la sieste” time.
9. You are easily impressed by imported foods. Pie made with fresh pumpkin, for example, pales in comparison compared to one made with the canned variety.
10. Most of the street vendors know you by name and don’t bother hassling you to buy souvenirs.
11. You throw a pagne (a wrap-skirt made out of local cloth) on over your sweatpants when you go to answer the door, so that you look “decent”. (This one is only for the ladies, obviously. If you are a guy wearing a skirt, you probably have issues that go beyond my capacity to advise you.)
12. You’ve had to explain to your kids what mittens are. They’ve never owned a pair
13. If you see even one more woodcarving or bronze statue of Princess Yenenga and her horse, a mother and child, a baobab tree, a mask or an African mammal of any description, you will grab said statue and, gibbering and foaming at the mouth, beat yourself on the head with it until you are unconscious, just so you don't have to look at it anymore.
14. You own a herd of goats
15. You think it’s normal for perfect strangers to ask after the health and well-being of your “old ones back in the home village”.
16. You will, with no embarrassment whatsoever, discuss every aspect of your own and everyone else’s latest illnesses, up to and including severe diarrhoea, sparing no details.
17. You have eaten every item on the Rec Center menu at least once.

And finally, the most serious warning sign that you have been in Ouagadougou far too long:

18. You not only wear a pagne, you carry vital personal items in the top folds of it! A few days ago, I was getting undressed and a Kleenex, a key and some money fell out of the top folds of my local-style wrap skirt. I suddenly realised that I have completely, unconsciously learned to emulate the Burkinabé women that I work with. Really poor women don’t own purses, of course. They carry their money and small items secreted in the top, rolled-over portion of their wrap skirts. I didn’t even really notice I was doing it, but when I thought it over, I realised that while I do have a purse that I carry when I go somewhere in my car, most of the time I don’t carry one. If I’m popping down to the corner shop, I just grab a few coins and fold them into the top of my skirt, along with a couple of Kleenexes for my allergy. I guess you could say purses are a sort of symbol of prosperity and modernity here. It’s something that middle-class women carry and poor women do not.

But here I am- I’m far from poor and I do own a purse. I have more than one, even. But I somehow find it more comfortable to fold up my money in my pagne. It’s strange and probably a sign that I need to go back home and get “Frenchified” again.

Fabric is an addictive substance here in Ouaga. I have seen a number women become “fabric junkies” here - each with a closet at the back of the house stuffed brimful with lengths of the evidence of their guilt.
It’s true that the fabrics here are very beautiful and relatively inexpensive. Glossy bazin for elegant boubous, linen for smart shirts, bright pagnes for wrap around skirts…
My current addiction is the batik cotton from Ghana. There are several women’s’ cooperatives doing this work there now and the Burkinabe have lost no time importing it.
I bought some last week and went back for more today with Mary Lynn. She loved it and bought two different patterns.
I have bought quite a bit, as I am starting a small business making girls’ dresses. There is a young woman we have known since she was 12. We paid for her school and she has become a seamstress now at age 18. Aisha doesn’t earn much in the workshop where she is employed, so I am going to get her started sewing dresses aimed at the upper-scale clientele here in Ouaga. I think these batiks will really appeal to the cooler Europeans and Americans. Not so much the Burkinabe. They vastly prefer the “made in Europe” label and tend not to like the African styles.
At least with Aisha, I know it will be easy to have the work done well. It is often a big hassle to get things sewn here. And it’s the only reasonable way to get new clothes, as there are few shops and the prices are very high. Custom-tailored clothes may sound great, but after you’ve been back for the fourth fitting and it STILL isn’t right, it can get a little frustrating. Or they’ve sewn it with the butterfly pattern all upside down. Or they fully lined the nice breezy gauze tunic you wanted them to make, turning into an object of suffocating heat-retention and defeating the whole purpose..
Mary-Lynn is having some things sewn by a another local seamstress. I am hoping that it goes smoothly, as she goes back to the US on Tuesday. Not much leeway for misunderstandings. But as they are simple shift dresses, not too much can go wrong.
We hope.