Dehradun, India

After 5 days, we leave Dehradun, where we were able to visit our friends, the Hisheys, who do great work with the Tibetan community. It was such a nice time with their families and the others engaged in mentoring and caring for the community in so many ways. 

We also tries to understand the issues faced by the Tibetan refugees in this region, and attempted to understand their culture and heritage, which is quite intertwined with the Buddhist tradition. We took a whole day touring monasteries and Tibetan Buddhist sites in the area.

Being with these friends and learning more from another part of the world have our trip the meaning we hoped for.

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Mussoorie, India

My first days in India, at the foothills of the Himalayan mountains.

We are here to visit our friends, Isaac and Joshua and their families, and to meet the men they mentor - all refugees from Tibet.

Today they took us up a winding road to the old British hill station of Mussoorie and I had my first glimpse of the Himalayas.  It was certainly a tease and it left me wanting to see more of these majestic mountains.

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Words I'm Contemplating

Reality – My fears are not reality.  Social media and photos in dreamy lighting are not reality. The drama I make up in my head isn’t reality.  Reality is now. Reality is getting up and living life - physically putting my hands into the Earth’s soil, savoring every sip of my latte, listening deeply to someone who is speaking to me.  I want to live more in reality, more in the now.

Giving and receiving – Every hour of the day I close off in one way or another.  I close my heart to others because I’m busy or I’m scared or I have something I don’t want to reveal.  I’ve been meditating on openness, on choosing to open myself to giving what I didn’t think I could give and receiving with grace whatever comes to me.  I want to let life flow through me more and more without clinging to some things and pushing away others.

Abundance, sufficiency, scarcity – I’ve been challenged by a class I’m taking in Conscious Social Change to consider what these words mean to me and how I approach the resources at my disposal.  When do I feel a sense of abundance?  Where does my sense of scarcity come from?  Is this based in reality?  To me, abundance is tied to the ability to dream.

Healing – I’m finding that healing is so multi-faceted - it is not just on one level, but on so many.  Wounds in one area affect all areas.  To truly heal, we must face our bodies, our fears, our identities, our emotions, our beliefs, our habits.  To heal, we must not ignore the wounds and pain, but approach them with tenderness and curiosity.

Peace – Peace is a word always on my mind.  It’s a word around which I plan to revolve my life.  It started with the world and now it’s become about me.  I see the world in myself and I see my inner conflicts played out in the world.  How can I attempt to make peace out there when I have so much work to do in here?

Fashion Passion

For the first few years in Uganda, I would wait until my trips to the US to stock up on clothes, as I thought there were no options in Uganda to get quality, affordable clothing that suited my fashion.  I would buy a garment here and there from the market, but most of my wardrobe was brought back in suitcases from America.

This year, I've found a lot of pleasure in exploring the options in Uganda for buying and making clothes that I not only love, but allow me to exercise creativity while I stock my closet.  I've also come to be more conscious of my responsibility as a consumer within the clothing industry and I want to be sure my fashion reflects my values as well as my sense of expression.

Ideally, I'd love to check all these boxes while buying clothes in Uganda: expression of creativity, affordability, pieces I love, and responsibly-sourced garments.  Here are a few ways I've been able to do so:

1) Buy off the rack at a local designer's shop

I bought both of these shirts at OP Clothing's store at Prunes in Kololo, right off the rack.  Although most of the stock are clothes made of the very bold kitenge fabric, they also have some great basics.  These are both among my most comfortable and therefore most-worn shirts.

2) Choose your fabric, choose your design - use a tailor

I do my fair share of Pinterest browsing and, like so many other women, I have my style board that I wish mirrored my actual closet.  Earlier this year, I ran across Lemlem, an awesome brand that makes beautiful clothes with textiles from Ethiopia.  The only problem is...um...I can't afford anything on their website.  But I went ahead and "pinned" a few things, then took the pictures and some fabric I found in Kampala to OP Clothing.  Check out the results:

Original Lemlem design

African kikoy scarf found downtown Kampala

 

Final product!

 
 

Original Lemlem "Didi Poncho Dress" priced at $300

My version, make from Afican kikoy material found at the farmers' market

 

Lemlem design

My version

 

Found on Pinterest

3) Let someone else do the work

Do yourself a favor and follow FashionCorps on Facebook.  They scour the second-hard markets in Kampala and pick out all the goodies, then re-sell them and donate part of the profits to great charities.  Did you catch that?  This means you get to source your clothes ethically, support worthy charities, and find some great pieces.  I attended their sale last Saturday and snatched up some goodies for my belly to grow into over the next several months. (I had to rush and write this blog post or else I soon wouldn't be able to fit into some of these featured clothes.  I really had to suck it in for some of the pictures!)

4) Dive into the markets

Yes, Owino market might be a pain to get to and you will get grabbed and yelled at and you will have to bargain and search through lots of crappy options, BUT you really can find some gems in Kampala's markets!  And CHEAP gems at that.  I don't hesitate to buy a fixer-upper and take it to a tailor to alter or patch up for me (Or, in one case, buy a curtain and turn it into a kimono - see below!)  Sometimes you just have to see the potential that others could never see!  My suggestion: avoid Owino and head to Nakawa market.  I always seem to find something good there and it is much less hectic.  Here are a few of my finds, each for 2,000 shillings (less than $1):

 

This was originally a floor-length mumu/robe found in a pile at the market.  I had the sleeves cut off, and had it hemmed into a shirt and taken in at the sides.

 
Phase 1: Curtain from Owino market

Phase 1: Curtain from Owino market

Phase 2: Kimono

Here's an outfit bought completely in Uganda - the leather shoes were bought for $4 on the side of the road, the jeans from Nakawa market, and the shirt from Fashioncorps.

How much do you want to go clothes hunting now?

 
 

Uganda from above

One of my very favorite things is to fly over the Earth on a clear day, sitting contently in a window seat; I easily get lost in the stunning landscapes below me, sitting in awe at the beauty of our Earth as I see it from a new perspective.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the good fortune to be flown to Gulu, in transit to our school in Nimule, South Sudan.  My stop in Gulu was one of three stops and knowing that Kidepo National Park was one of them, I casually mentioned I wouldn't mind being the last to be dropped off if others were in a hurry to reach their destinations.  The other passengers were pleased and the pilot obliged, which means I sat happily in my seat, watching Uganda pass under me. 

In one trip we flew over the packed slums of Kampala to Uganda's most remote game park, witnessing within a couple of hours the juxtaposition of Kampala's jammed traffic to a huge herd of water buffalo spread across the Karamoja plains.

Do you see the buffalo herd? (10th picture down)