This is what I was told a few days before the leaving party of a fellow aid worker.
It was a fancy dress party and as the lady leaving had a name beginning with ‘M’ (plus the host was secretly desperate to get some wear out of his ‘middle eastern’ fancy dress outfit!) the theme was set.
Now bearing in mind the war has only been over for about a year and it’s still impossible to buy even some really basic food items here, this was going to be a challenge. There are certainly no local fancy dress hire shops!
However I can be rather imaginative when I try so here is how to make an ‘M’ themed fancy dress outfit which would impress even the most skilled of Blue Peter’s sticky back plastic presenters….can you guess what I went as?
First get yourself a straw hat…fairly easy to find when the ‘straw’ here is from the palms of a palm tree; trees which are two-a-penny in Sri Lanka…
A trip to the local florist got me some very fake and very bright flowers which I stuck on my palm leaf hat….
Next off to find some bells…after quite some searching I found out that bells are sewn onto the hems of Sri Lankan traditional dancers so it was a quick trip to the local market to ask around for ‘dancing girl bells’!
Then it was a case of individually sewing (by my own fair hands no less) my 100 dancing girl bells onto a pair of trousers.
It was a long afternoon!
Next onto the slightly more imaginative part….take 2 ribbons, chop them in half then glue the ends together…
Have you guessed what I was yet??
This might help…the final touch was to chop up 2 squares of white bed sheet…
Guessed yet?
Here’s a clue;
I represent a very English folk tradition….
– A MORRIS DANCER!!
Considering I was the only English person there, there were some fairly confused looks when I walked in.
No fear though – a few cocktails later I gave my best rendition of a morris dance….which needless to say resulted in even more confusion.
All good fun though.
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