T-shirts (Scott's Post)

I would say that 95% of the shirts that men and women wear in rural areas of Zambia were first worn by people from first world countries, filtered down from second-hand stores and clothing drives through donation organizations all over the world.  A very small percentage have shirts they bought off the rack in Zambia, likely made in an eastern asian country, and fewer still have shirts they have had tailored for themselves, usually out of the ubiquitous cotton or polyester fabric called "chitenge" (pronounced in Lunda like she - 'teng - gay) found in nearly every market in Zambia, though rarely manufactured in Zambia.  At formal events attended by educated and more wealthy Zambians you might see a higher percentage of tailored chitenge shirts, but rural Zambians don't usually fit the educated and wealthy description.

Eyeing captioned or logo'ed second-hand shirts on rural Zambians of all ages has been a source of great entertainment for many Peace Corps volunteers.  Sometimes they are those free T-shirts from fund-raisers, american football jerseys (I've probably seen a jersey from your favorite team at some point in my service), colleges and universities, local small-town sports teams, and company paraphenalia. Most of the time that there are words on a shirt they are in English, followed in distant second place by french.  The primary amusement is that the wearer probably does not understand what the shirt means or to what it refers.  Here's a list of some that I have seen in Zambia. 

"Homework sucks" on a 10-yr old village boy.  The irony is that the majority of students in our village never have homework.
 "Video games are ruining my life" seen on a 7-yr old village boy who has never played a video game and likely doesn't know what one is.
"I 'heart-shape' Dick" on a 25-yr old man walking the streets of Solwezi. "heart shape" refers to the symbol of a heart ubiquitously used as a symbol for the word 'love'.
A 60-yr old village man wearing a teletubbies sweatshirt at a meeting where most villagers dress in their best clothes.  'Best' in the village usually means clean and in no need of mending.
"I would do me" on a 13-yr old village boy.
"This is my boyfriend (arrow underneath pointing to the wearer's right) on a male teenage villager.
"This is Art" on a plain black t-shirt with no other graphic.  Assume the wearer is referring to themselves.
"I rock, you don't"
"9 out of 10 experts agree, you are an idiot" on a 30-year old male villager.
A shirt on a teenage boy with two graphics on the front:  one of a graphic of a hand giving the reader the finger with a picture to the right of a graphic of a hand pointing at the reader.  Read "F _ _ _  You".
"Chicks dig me" on a 7-yr old village boy.
Picture of the flintstones characters Pebbles and BamBam on a 5-yr old village girl. Think she's ever heard of the Flintstones?
"Old School Niggaz" on a black t-shirt with a white bow tie and vest lines on a late-20's man checking out of the shop-rite in Solwezi.  This is one of the few people who likely knew the meaning of what they were wearing.  At least, that's what I thought when I first saw it.  Looking back I notice that all the T-shirts designed to bring humor or offense were worn by males.  If no one knew what they meant wouldn't they be more evenly distributed between men and women?  Maybe they knew more than I gave them credit for...