Dressing the Part

At the embassy there is a Marine Security Guard detachment- a group of young Marines that are responsible for certain aspects of security at the embassy. The Marine Corps Birthday is November 10th and all over the world on or around that day there are big festivities and, I am told, always a "Marine Ball".

I had never heard of a Marine Ball before but its a big deal; a formal tux wearing, champagne drinking, lipstick and ballgown affair. A big fancy venue, dinner, drinks, dancing and holy shit...formal wear. YIKES! Having only been here for a couple of months all of our stuff has not made its way from Seattle/DC/Brussels so the big question on our minds has been what the heck are we going to wear? I thought about just wearing a dressy skirt and cardigan but was told that would be inappropriate at this black tie event. Holy stress about trying to find a formal gown in a foreign country in a foreign language.


My inspiration came when I saw a bunch of Rwandan women in what looked like a sari/toga dress and asked my co-worker what they were called. The dresses are called umushanana and they are comprised of a wrap around skirt and a over the shoulder piece of fabric. You wear a tank top or short sleeved tight shirt underneath. They are really cool looking - I, however, didn't want to look like the blob that stole kigali so I knew that fabric choice was going to be important.


A couple of Saturdays ago we spent a couple of hours digging through fabric stalls in the downtown area. I found some really amazing fabric that was white with black trees on it. I know it sounds crazy but it was seriously pretty. Fabric in hand I just had to figure out how to get the dress made. I took a look at my co-workers umushanana and it is super simple. If I had my sewing machine it would take about an hour to stitch. Alas no sewing machine - you know the story. I needed to find someone to hem the fabric for me - a friend was getting a dress made so I tagged along with her and dropped of the fabric.

Eric picked it up for me on Thursday and waaa laaaaa - I had a party dress to wear! You should hear the story of Eric's suit. It deserves its own post so be on the look out for a post about how to buy a suit at an open market.

There are better pictures to come but...Eric and I along with my co-worker, Elyse.