Traditionally, in East Africa, women wear kangas. A kanga is a rectangular piece of fine cotton cloth, which has a border all round it.

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In villages, women simply wrap the kanga around the body above the bust. Kangas are generally sold in pairs: the second one is often draped over the head as protection from the sun, or mothers use it as a sling to carry a baby on their back. In the city, they are sometimes placed over western clothes as a long skirt, for special occasions. For a wedding, for example, all the guests will buy the same prescribed design to wear to the ceremony.

Kangas were introduced to the East African coast in the middle of the 19th century, and were probably made in India. Large kerchiefs, at that time, were printed in lengths of six, and women started buying them, cutting the strip in half, and sewing it together to make a two by three rectangle to wear. In Swahili, kanga means guinea fowl: it’s probable that the designs on these early kerchiefs were white spots on a dark background, like the bird.

These days, there are myriad different designs, and they are mass-produced locally. You can get a pair for about the equivalent of three pounds. In Tanzania, any member of the public can go to a kanga factory, propose a design, and earn a few bob if it's accepted.

Kangas generally carry a printed proverb or saying, which makes them particularly suitable for offering as a meaningful gift. A ‘new issue’ will come out for a special event: I have a beautiful deep red one which was given to me at an AIDS conference: the Swahili inscription translates as ‘I have been tested – have you?’

The cloth designs used to be simply pretty patterns, but now it is not uncommon to find kangas with mobile phones, or pop singers printed all over them!

There are many inventive ways of wrapping and tying kangas around the body as skirts, headdresses, pyjamas, shorts, or long trousers.

I own about thirty, and many are over twenty years old. The more you wash them, the softer and more comfortable they become. They roll up into a tiny bundle that will easily fit into a handbag.

I took a threadbare favourite on my recent holiday to Sardinia. I chose this particular one because the pink matches most of my clothes, and also I like its proverb: 'Palipo na furaha hapakosi neema', which (although it is in rather incorrect Kenyan Swahili!) translates as 'Where there is happiness there is prosperity'.

Below you can see a few of its many uses.

You can use it as selective shade if you want to tan your legs but protect your face:

...or as a shawl to cover your shoulders if you suddenly find you want to visit a church or mosque, and have bare shoulders.

You can lie on it on the beach

... or take two, and put one over you to give you an insect-free siesta.

You can protect your shoulders from the midday sun,

use it as a towel,

or as an efficient means of getting rid of the sand between your toes (And they dry in no time at all - wash them in the evening, and in the morning they're ready for action! These photos were NOT all taken on the same day!)

It can be a yoga mat

or a picnic table

.

And if you suddenly feel your outfits aren't glamorous enough for Sardinia's Emerald coast, it can transform you into a stylish model!

So what do you do if you don't have a kanga? Well, you can use a sarong, which can be bought cheaply in any market or department store.

For more information on kangas, see
http://www.glcom.com/hassan/kanga_history.html
http://maragordon.wordpress.com/2009/02/04/kanga-roo/