breakfast at banana boat

this week we watched 'breakfast at tiffany's'.  it took two nights because the first night i fell asleep half way through and mike refused to tell me the ending (which i'd forgotten although i own the movie!) if you haven't seen the movie- audrey hepburn plays holly golightly, a country girl who runs away to the big city, and uses her wiles to lure wealthy men into giving her money and buying her nice things.  she's incredibly engaging and charming, but detached and unsure of her identity.   holly golightly definitely has a personality disorder.  i mean she's beautiful and fun and crazy- but really- she's crazy.  mike said she reminds him of me.  great.  and since i look nothing like audrey hepburn, i knew he was talking about the crazy.
"really?" i said,  "scared of life and unable to commit and unsure of my identity?" 
"well, when you were younger."  he clarified. 
 
tiffany's is a high-end jewelry store where holly feels safe.  where she escapes to when she's getting out of whack- or frightened- or dis-regulated. "nothing bad could ever happen at Tiffany's" she says. 

yesterday i went to my 'tiffany's' aka banana boat.  http://www.bananaboat.co.ug/home.php  (check it!)
it's a store in kampala (well there are three of them) that sells beautiful ugandan crafts- in full fair-trade manner.  fabric, lamps, carved horn utensils, dolls, leather items, baskets- pretty much most decorative, but functional items, that you'd want. but, the store cares about the person behind the product, the environment used to make the product, and the country itself.    i love this store, partially because many of their functional items are cheaper than the plastic version made in china that you'd find in the bigger more western stores, because it's supporting local work and artistry, and because of the tiffany's factor.  it gives me the 'safe' and the 'good' feeling. "nothing bad could ever happen at banana boat".

i mean in this crazy place of struggling to find string (yes- string- 4 stores and no string), and being unable to buy propane for our stove/oven (yes- 10 different gas stations- all have none- "no one has.  maybe next week." okay, but what am i supposed to do until then??), banana boat has a system.  they have a computer that works and talks with the other store computers, so if one store doesn't have it, they can find out if the other one does! it's like a christmas miracle!  and speaking of christmas (my favorite season of the year) they were starting to put out their little hand made craft christmas tree ornaments and cards on recycled ugandan paper yesterday.  the double safe feeling.  everything is pretty and smells good and there is nice music playing, and you can feel good that unlike so many other products one buys in this world, people are not being exploited to make something 'cute'. 

so i get it. i get the feeling of a place bringing some happiness and even comfort.  maybe i am more crazy then i thought- but at least it's local fabric and not diamonds!