The art of casual ragged dressing
A friend of mine tells me that just recently, he attended a prayer day organised by his children’s school, as the children were about to sit for end of year exams.
(We are a very prayerful nation, particularly in times of national disasters— both man-made and natural— elections and exams.) He tells me that the children’s’ mothers were impeccably dressed, so much so that he wondered if they were coming from work or from various parties. However the fathers, on the other hand, were a man-made disaster in themselves.
As the day happened to fall on a Friday, most were dressed in casual wear. But it seems our male brethren do not understand what ‘casual wear’ means. Many of them turned up in sandals, displaying ashy feet which were last oiled when they were babies.
And may I add that toes are a part of the male anatomy that no one in their right mind needs to look at, unless, of course, the male in question has been having regular pedicures.
Some of the fathers looked homeless, as if they had come to seek shelter in the church instead pray for their children. (I’m sure their children would have denied knowing them anyway.)
There they were, a herd of strange—looking men in their sandals, ragged jeans and shapeless T-shirts. As my friend described it, the T-shirts seemed to hate their owners, with the collars looking like they were trying to run away from the necks they were attached to.
My brothers, this is my appeal to you. In your Ugandan-ness, you have somehow managed to master the fine art of dressing casually without appearing ragged, or showing your toes. Every time we, your Kenyan sisters, look at you we wistfully look at our men and wonder what went wrong. I am asking, in all humility, for a regional conference on correct male dressing.
We are tired of taking hours to prepare and dress for public functions, only to be embarrassed by our better halves in ill-fitting shirts that blow around their bodies. Perhaps our beloveds will listen better to people of their own species.
