bazin

This is us in our new bazin outfits, the picture is from when we were at a celebration in Bamako.

Bazin is the special fabric of Mali. It is made white and can be dyed into all different colors. Its a lot more expensive that regular printed coton African fabric. It starts out really shiny and stiff, but that goes away after it gets washed. Its also really hot to wear because of all the starch in it. Some people really want it to be shiny and stiff though, and they starch it and then get people to hit it with wood to make it shiny, they actually bring thier clothes to a place where someone's job is to hit bazin with wood all day. I don’t quite understand how this works, why hitting the fabric with wood makes it shiny again, but somehow it does.

To get a new outfit, first you go pick out the fabric you want, you bargain for the price and buy it. Then you decide what style of outfit you want made. I drew a picture of what I had in mind. Then you take the fabric to a tailor and try to explain what you want him or her to make. Since these have embroidery we had to go to a shop that does both sewing and embroidery. At the shop you can decide on colors and styles for the embroidery, too. The tailor measures you and finally you can leave. A few days later you go back and what you get back is never quite what you imagined, but hopefully its close.