Blogathon Day 13: My New Hoodie!

A woman wearing a capulana.

Capulana is the traditional cloth worn by all women in Mozambique. Capulanas are great because you can use them for just about anything -- as clothing, to carry your baby, to wrap an injury, to pad your head while carrying twenty liters of water, to sit on, as a towel, etc, etc, etc. The uses are endless.

The best use of capulanas, however, lies in making clothes. In any decently sized town, there will be a few modistas (seamstresses) and alfaiates (tailors), and these people can make anything and everything out of capulanas. Most of the time, they make ridiculously great fatos (those crazy African suits with poofy arms and lots of frills), but you can ask them to make anything. Volunteers have had a lot of success in giving their modista an article of clothing and having them copy it in capulana -- which is precisely what I did last week.

I am lucky in that I have a friend who is an alfaiate. His name is Ramim, and he works in Tete City as a particularly talented tailor. Ramim's really awesome -- he can make absolutely anything, so I asked him to make me the holy grail of Peace Corps Mozambique clothing -- the capulana hoodie. I left him the fabric (which my mom helped me pick out!) and two weeks later, I went to pick up the finished product.

Mission: Accomplished.

It came out sooooooooo great. I've been wearing this hoodie nonstop since Ramim delivered it to me. I think I might wear this hoodie until the day I die.