Le boubou le 29 mars

Le boubou :

I wore my mbasan complet boubou today for the first time – there was a wedding.  People said I looked like an African burreaucrat.  Also voici some quotations related to my habillement: “Aujourd’hui, vous êtes africain.”  "Vous êtes bien habillé ! "  "Eh dis-donc ! Vous êtes beau !"   "Eeeh ! M’sieur no laba !"

No but really I couln’t help but walk to school with a smile and when I finally looked in a mirror (or in reality i twas the very reflective window of my neighbor’s house) I felt like I looked gooood as if I was wearing a designer three piece suit.

Même que j’adore ce complet, will I ever wear it back in the states? I wouldn’t wear it on n’importe quel jour, that would diminish its significance (sa valeur, quoi?).  It would have to be a special occasion but most special occaisons that I can think up, the boubou would be completely absurd to wear…

Different but related train of thought: talking, reading, writing, and eating (listening to the radio or whatever) makes me think of living in France (which I would still love to do).  But I have strange mixed cultural thoughts, like: “I can speak French and they’ll be so impressed that I already can carry things on my head and I have a beautiful purple boubou in my wordrobe! I’ll fit in so well right from the get go!”  …not quite… From now on I’m going to be strange – a stranger wherever I go from here to America to France to India to South America really anywhere in the world I am now quite bizzar, kaa?!!  

But at very least I now have a beautiful boubou!