What was I thinking?

Since living overseas, I have led myself to believe that I am far away from the temptations of retail therapy. Every month, I convince myself that I am leading a very frugal life and that I have somehow risen above the Western calls of consumerism.
However, as I start to sift through my things before moving house, I realise have an awful lot of ‘stuff’. I can’t say that this is something that started in Africa. Although there was no shortage of shops in Bogota, it was practically impossible to buy anything that would fit an average sized British woman. So whenever there was an opportunity to splurge, I took it with gusto. One of our favourite trips used to be to the ‘Leather District’. A taxi ride to the far side of town would take you to a street of shops bursting with every product imaginable made out of cow hide. We giggled at the neon pink leather miniskirts and turquoise waistcoats, but got excited about the prospect of buying tailor made clothes. Armed with a fistful of magazine pictures, you could select the exact shade and design of jackets based on designer labels for a snippet of the cost. My first purchase was a rather sensible brown jacket and that was soon followed up with a black biker style jacket that made me feel very rock and roll. But like everything that is enjoyable in life, there is a shady line between a healthy interest and a mindless obsession. Each visit, of course, would not be complete without throwing in a couple of handbags. Then, came the moment of descent, when I thought it was a great idea to buy … wait for it … a red leather jacket! The cut was great, similar to the very first brown one, but seriously! What is perhaps even more worrying is that I was egged on by my friends to buy the damned thing. I don’t feel bad about it – they were less than $100 each and the buying process was definitely fun. I just wonder what I was thinking.
In the living room, I have a big red painting with some random oranges and apples on sticks. I bought this little gem on my first visit to Villa de Leyva, a charming colonial town a few hours away from Bogota. It had been a relaxing afternoon, where we ate and drank wine in the shady courtyards of the ancient buildings. One of the restaurants was owned by an old artist. He was a lovely and gentile old man, a Colombian Tony Hart, who enjoyed his leisurely life of painting and chatting to tourists. In my mind, I had an in-depth conversation about art with him in Spanish. But after an afternoon of quaffing vino, I suspect that the conversation was more along the lines of ‘this picture is red … I like red … look at the apple’ and so forth. He smiled and nodded and was more than happy to accept a couple of hundred thousand pesos for the picture. In exchange, I got a picture that I’m not so sure about anymore, but a happy memory of buying it and the buzz of excitement that goes along with shopping.
Uganda is even more limited when it comes to shopping, but I have still managed to make a few faux pas. I just took a dress out of my wardrobe that I bought from a tailoring school outside of the city. When I tried the dress on, my friends politely pointed out that it was a little on the large side, but common sense rarely interferes with a woman intent on spending money. I asked for a few adjustments and was convinced that this dress would inject a little glamour into my Kampala life. Once I got home with the dress, I realised that my friends were not trying to jeopardise my fun but were actually trying to stop me from wasting my hard earned cash on a dress that was totally unsuitable. To this day, the dress has hung up in my wardrobe unworn. I won’t lose any sleep over it. The organisation works well with the community and by buying the dress, I have helped to fund young girls to learn a trade and to find a way of earning independently.
Obviously it doesn’t stop there. Shopping makes us temporarily happy and can take the edge off a bad day. I have endless amounts of junk that I have bought because I have come up with one reason or another to justify it. A whole tangled mess of paper beads clutter up my jewellery baskets, beads that I would only ever work here. I think that certain things fit in certain places. The leather jacket really was the thing to wear in Bogota – but travel elsewhere and you look like an extra from an Aerosmith video. If I were to try to wear my tailor made, African fabric clothes in the UK, people would mistake me for an Oxfam model or a wannabe hippy. So while I am sure that this will not be the end of my shopping boo boos, I am going to try to exercise a little more caution in the future.