You are smart!

Now, when I think of people being smartly dressed I think of good tailoring, pencil skirts, suits, outfits suitable for a wedding, shiny shoes, coiffure-d hair. Needless to say, I am not, even in Britain with its mod cons and beauty treatments on tap, a model for smart dressing. Yet, here I am often met by the greeting ‘you are smart today’. This is made more remarkable that a good 90% of my clothes have seen considerably better days. Three of my dresses have been sewn up by my own fair hand and being the first to admit my faults, this does not mean a great job has been done. The bottoms of my jeans are now permanently stained a pale reddy-brown and after 7 months of cold showers and no visit to the hairdresser my barnet certainly leaves something to be desired. However, thanks to a diligent boyfriend my shoes do tend to be buffed and polished, so at least my feet are keeping up appearances.

People who are actually smart

I think perhaps the criteria for me being smart is, that occasionally, I match. By this I mean I might wear a grey t-shirt under a dress and a grey cardigan – I don’t have the ability to be anymore co-ordinated than that. My main problem is that I’m drawn to patterns and as such find my wardrobe tends to clash. If that is the criteria then people must be pretty easy to please. However I’m not sure that this is the case.  Nine out of the ten people who tell me that I am smart are considerably smarter themselves, dressed in handmade kitenge outfits, ironed shirts, smart trousers and polished shoes.

All I can surmise is that living in Kabale they see so many travellers passing through who are a bit dusty, worn looking, sweaty from the gruelling bus or matatu journeys that they are just used to white people looking  a bit worse for wear. Therefore someone who has showered recently, has managed to brush their hair and at least made an attempt at wearing clean clothes just looks smart in comparison!