Can I borrow that?

                The long awaited day of swearing in is finally approaching! Come this Thursday I can officially call myself a Peace Corps Volunteer. The only problem is I have nothing to wear. While I did bring a few things that would be appropriate somehow I have lost a significant amount of weight and am having issues fitting into a majority of my things. Therefore, this week whenever someone was wearing something that looked like it could work I asked if I can borrow it. I’ve also had to go to a few volunteers places and try on their things. By the end of the week I had accumulated a significant amount of clothing to try and work with. I came home and told Yavett my problem. She came into my room and we tried to put some things together and I then I gave her a little fashion show of all my options. It reminded me of being at home. After I go on a shopping spree I always come home and insist that my mom let me try everything on and get her opinion. This was a similar situation, except instead of a shopping spree it was raiding other volunteers closets, and instead of my mom I had Yavett who has extremely different taste then I do. Some of the coordination’s we were putting together were rather comical from an American fashion point of view. At the end of the fashion show we concluded that none of my stuff worked. I told her I would work it out and it would fine.

Two hours later Yavett comes into my room and says

"My girl, did you know I could sew” I start to laugh and tell her no I didn’t know that

“My girl laughs at me! You didn’t know? I never told you I can sew?! I can sew good you know!”

“No Yavett you never told me!” I can’t stop laughing

“My girl still laughs! You want to come and see some things” I tell her sure, even though most likely none of her things will fit seeing that she is 5 foot 2 and much curvier then I am. We go down stairs and she brings me to a huge closet in the laundry room and starts rummaging through it. She begings pulling things out saying that she made it. Some of the things were very pretty but would never work for the ceremony. She explains,

“These are all my big clothing. I lost a lot of weight and these don’t fit anymore. I cried about it.”

“You cried because you were happy?” I ask. I expected the answer to be yes, because at home people are always dieting and trying to lose weight.

“NO! I was so upset! I use to have the biggest bum! I loved my big bum and now it’s gone!” she exclaimed. She began pulling out pairs of pants and showing how big the butt area was so I could visualize just how big her “bum” was.

“Well I have a small bum” She turns to look at me and glanced me up and down. She then comes up behind me and cups my butt,“Yep, No bum here! Hey so can you wear pants? I may have a pant suit.” She then digs further into the closet and pulls out a bright Orange Pant suit. “try this on” So I strip down in the laundry room and put on this orange suit, that is 4 sizes too big.  The pants came zippered right below my bust and then I basically was swimming in the jacked. She clearly had had the pants hemmed because they belled out below my ankles. I started laughing because I knew I had to look ridiculous.

Unfortunately I did not have my camera,
but i would assume I looked something like this...

She then looks me up and down “hmm that could work! Go show Alysha and Mighty upstairs.” I look at her and can’t believe she is actually going to have me parade around the house in this outfit for the whole family to see. I walk upstairs and as soon as Alysha sees me she spits up her food,

“What are you doings? What are wearing!”

“She looks good! I want her to wear this to ceremony” Yavett says

“No, the jacket is way too big.” Alysha says. I nod at her and silently mouth the words thank you.

“Ok maybe this doesn’t work. Oh girl I wish you had told me that you needed something, I would have made you a dress” I tell her it’s fine I’ll find something.

“You know you need to stop running so much, that’s why you lost all your bum and your clothes don’t fit!” We all laugh and I go to take off the suit. 

Just another day living at the Joseph residence.