My dress that always attracts attention

Everytime I wear this dress and legging, reference to this picture below, I always receive a comment from friends, relatives and so forth. These are among some of my clothes easily defined by ambiguous terms like right and wrong just like everything else that dares break the rules of conservatism as traditionalist would say.

(Picture by Nancy Tsama)

Of all the comments that I usually get, there is one that drew my attention. It came unexpected. This is a comment that I got from a woman who comes the same village as mine in Mutare.

“Today you are dressed like a Ndebele that’s not how we dress in MaNyika,” said the woman. 

In response to her comment I asked a question, how do Ndebeles dress? She replied, “exactly the way you are dressed, you cannot go see your mamazala, mother in low, dressed like that, but kuchiNdevere vakadzi vanopfeka chero zvavada vechinowona anavamwene, in the Ndebele culture women wear anything when going to see their in laws.

I didn’t want to engage so much in that conversation, as I was in a hurry. I only concluded: “I am Shona by origin, but I was socialised in Ndebele and I have my own way of dressing which is not informed by any tribal lines.”

Deep down I had a feeling that all that this woman was saying is based on speculation on the back of stereotypes and myths and misconceptions that people usually have about the Ndebele and Shona people.

However, I was left with a burning desire to research more about dressing across cultures in Zimbabwe. Below are the  related articles that I got.

National dress launched

The Ndebele Nation

Canadian perspective on Zimbabweans