WHAT SURF? By Kevin O’Connor
I
t was a beautiful sunny morning when I spotted Sam, a 22-year-old student in the fifth year of secondary school, wearing a “Surf ’s Up, Outer Banks” T-shirt. He smiled broadly as he gladly posed for my camera. Nothing surprising in any of this, you may think. But Sam is not a surfer, has never been to Outer Banks or the U.S., and in fact does not know that Outer Banks is in the U.S. So, why was he wearing this T-shirt? Sam lives in Kampala, the capital of Uganda in East Africa. Most Ugandans wear imported second-hand clothes, as do many people in poor Third World countries. Used shirts, blouses, trousers, caps and much other clothing reach Uganda in huge bales from the U.S., Britain, and other developed countries, and are known locally as mivumba. Sam bought the T-shirt for 10,000 Ugandan shillings (about $4 U.S.) at
Owino Market, the main market for mivumba in Kampala. Here we have the First World’s cast-offs being worn by the poor in the Third World. In these environmentally conscious times, this flow of second-hand clothes can be viewed as an important form of recycling. Sam’s favorite subject at school is math, and his ambition is to become a lawyer. Living in a landlocked country in East Africa, he knows nothing of the Outer Banks, nor of surfboards, nor of surf. Nevertheless, he wears his Outer Banks T-shirt with pride. The shirt reads “Surf ’s Up . . . School Board . . . Girls Rules . . . Learn to Ride the Long Boards . . . Outer Banks, NC.”
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Kevin O’Connor is a journalist and athletics coach who lives with his wife in Uganda. His newspaper columns have been published in the book “Ugandan Society Observed.” Carolina Country NOVEMBER 2010 25