Top Priority: Mitumba

When sorting through the various posses-
sions it is so easy to accumulate in America, I often have a hard time deciding what to do with two categories of things: the things that I just don’t like (old event t-shirts, clothes that aren’t very worn but are out of date or just never feel right).  Equally hard are the things that are pretty well worn out, but that still might have some life left in them (would anyone really want them or are they better off consigned to the trash?).  Generally, I give up, drop everything  off at the Goodwill or another charitable organization, feel simultaneously guilty and self-congratulatory for a bit, and then move on with my life, acquiring more things I don’t really need and will eventually be in a quandary about.

This year, I’ve seen what happens on the other side of that quandary.  Many, many things that no one wants in the US eventually make their way to Zanzibar and are sold as “mitumba.”  After almost a year, we’ve grown accustomed to seeing Zanzibari people walking around with shirts from various events that it’s very unlikely they attended and announcing identities they don’t appear to have (say, a middle-aged man wearing a “Jorgensen family reunion 2008—Duluth, MN” shirt, or an elderly man in a “Class of 2006 Roosevelt High Go Tigers!” shirt, or a teenage boy wearing a pink shirt that says “Hockey Mom”).  Women don’t tend to wear the t-shirts, but at a wedding I recently attended, I saw many women wearing slinky, sparkly used prom dresses, under which they wore coordinating long-sleeved t-shirts for modesty’s sake.

These various unwanted  American things are bundled up and shipped over to Africa, sold in lots at auctions to middlemen, and then transformed again to wanted things when purchased again by customers.  The resale price is relatively expensive for some things—I guess not surprisingly, given the distance these things have traveled and the number of hands they’ve passed through.   A used t-shirt in bad condition might be around 500 Tsh (around $.35), while a nicer t-shirt might run up to 2000 Tsh.  Shoes are really pricey and often cost more than new local shoes.

We shop from time to time at thrift stores in America, but I never thought we’d be buying American castoffs in Africa.  Certainly, when I was looking last fall for something that would protect my feet from sea urchins at the beach, I rejected outright a pair of well-used Tevas at the price of 15,000 Tsh (around $12) and instead spent 8,000 on a pair of new Tanzanian “Tuvas” which subsequently gave me blisters.  But, this spring when Oscar had outgrown all the shoes we’d brought with us from America and had worn two new pairs of Tanzanian shoes to the threads in a matter of weeks, we set out for the used market.  We hit the jackpot with a pair of used Keens that are like ones we had bought a few sizes ago in America.  The price?  Well, Brady bartered: a gently used pair of kids’ Addidas indoor soccer shoes, a practically demolished pair of sandals, an uncomfortable pair of dress shoes, plus 10,000 tsh.  A bargain!  Two months later, and those are the shoes Oscar’s wearing home.