Giggly Jamila
As I already mentioned, I only have field notes for a teeny-tiny part of my stay in Lamu – this is the last post including that. Therefore, from this point onward, the posts will be focused on particular topics, as my memory is fading and I cannot recall precisely what I did when (not that it mattered, anyway). That being said, here’s the update for
July 29. In the morning, an older guy who used to be a journalist is visiting Boss. She has to speak very loudly, because he doesn’t hear very well, but one of the coolest things he says refers to a girl who was at the town meeting yesterday. The man asks Boss if the said girl is a Muslim, and Boss replies that she’s not. “But she dresses like a Muslim,” he says. While I do understand that it makes your life easier, as a woman, to be wearing a bui bui and a headscarf when you’re here, I still wouldn’t do it, precisely because of the implications. You wear a bui bui to show that you adhere to a set of values, all the time, every time. You cannot simply wear that on vacation, then go back home and put on your regular clothes. For me, at least, it wouldn’t feel right. And wearing it because you think it makes you look beautiful (when its purpose is precisely to cover you up, not to make you seem hot) is even worse, imo.
