Article : CHAPTER 6

How Small Entrepreneurs Clothe East Africa with Old American T-Shirts

By: Pietra Rivoli

MITUMBA NATION

Poverty in Dar es Salaam is a languid and sultry state that has settled on the city like a heavy wash of paint. Though Tanzania is one of the poorest countries in the world, the poverty is not one of frenetic wretchedness as one finds in Calcutta or Nairobi, but is instead a peaceful way of being, a slow-moving and purposeful means of navigating life's rhythms: sleep, eat, shop, laugh, smile, sing, be poor. Poverty is the weather in Tanzania. It is just therethere when the Africans go to sleep, and there when they wake up, there every day of their very short lives. Like the weather, poverty doesn't change enough to be a topic of conversation. Poor just is. Tanzania's socialist dream is in shambles, crumbling like the colonial buildings left by the British. Julius Nyerere, the country's post-independence leader, had a dream for Tanzania of self-reliance: After generations of bowing to slave traders and colonial masters, Tanzanians would produce their own goods, grow their own food, write their own destiny. Nyerere's vision of "Socialism with Self-Reliance" was a road map to escape the past. Under Nyerere's leadership, Tanzania in the late 1960s was the most committed of the socialist countries of Africa, and Nyerere was a spokesperson not only for socialism but for the poorest of the poor around the world. But like many of her African neighbors, Tanzania found that the socialist road led to dead end after dead end with factories that didn't produce, workers who didn't work, and farmers who didn't farm. Throughout the 1970s, incomes were falling, investment was contracting, and the majority of Tanzanians lived below the poverty line.1 By 1980, Tanzania had the second-lowest per-capita income in the world. The Tanzanians, who had for so long been exploited by the British, were now exploited by an idealan ideal that could deliver pride, and perhaps a theoretical self-reliance, but could not deliver goods, food, jobs, or medicine.

Today, free market economics is supposed to be the way forward for Tanzania, but this seems like an almost surreal prescription for this dusty, peaceful place of brilliant smiles. Children under 5 in Tanzania die at approximately twenty times the rate of babies in the United States, often from diseases that vanished from the West generations ago. AIDS has eviscerated villages and families, and has brought the average life expectancy in Tanzania down to 46, lower than it was a generation ago. The majority of the country's population survives by subsistence agriculture and still lives below the poverty line, and more than 40 percent of adults cannot read. How to define and measure poverty and well-being has been a challenge for development experts for generations, but it is not a challenge at all to see that by virtually any measureincome, calories, wealth, life expectancy, access to water, or brick housingTanzania holds down the bottom of the graph. During the past generation, as China's per-capita income has quintupled, Tanzania's has barely budged, and in 2006 reached just $1 per day.3 Yet, in 2008, many were pointing to Tanzania as a bright spot in Africa. The country was at peace, the economy was stable, and the political system was working. The most stunning scenery in Tanzania is not the savannah landscape but the African women. They stand taller and prouder than women anywhere, perhaps from years of carrying bananas and flour on the tops of their heads, perhaps from years of holding the country together. The white womenEuropean backpackers, lunching wives of diplomats, missionary aid workersfade away in comparison, graceless and silly in the shadow of the African queens. Many of the African women in Dar es Salaam are draped in the brilliantly colored native cloth, graceful folds wrapping their strong bodies and stronger spirits. They are brilliantly colored splashes across the poverty and hardship of Tanzania. The men are a muted background to this scenery. They work, or they sit under shade trees, not as proud, not as strong, not as busy. There are some men in Muslim skullcaps and a few in Indian dhotis, but none at all in traditional African dress. Almost all of the men and boys in Dar es Salaam wear mitumba clothing thrown away by Americans and Europeans, and many are in T-shirts. Julius Nyerere would turn over in his grave at the sight of it: Used clothing from the West was among the first imports banned under his prideful policy of Socialism with Self-Reliance. What could be less self-reliant or more symbolically dependent than a nation clothed in the white world's castoffs? Yet, it is difficult to see exploitation or dependence in the human landscape clothed in mitumba. I found that most of the men on the streets of Dar es Salaam looked natty and impeccable. In 2007, used clothing was America's third-largest export-to Tanzania, and exports had increased by nearly 50 percent from 2006. Tanzania was one the largest customers for American used clothing, with competitional countries such as Angolsr Mozambique, and Benin? Though it would take an average Tanzanian perhaps 60 years to earn enough to buy the Lexus SUV in the Bethesda parking lot, thanks to a nimble network of global entreprene' ursr Tanzamans can dress well for very little money. In this small piece of the Tanzanian experience, the markets work just fine.

TWO FOR A PENNY When I first visited Tanzania in 2003, the Manzese market in northern Dar es Salaam was the country's largest mitumba market. The market occupied busy Morogoro Road for more than a mile and contained hundreds of stalls. Like a suburban shopping mall, the, stalls were geared to different customers. Then and now, stalls specialize in baby clothing or blue jeans, athletic wear or Dockers, or even curtains. The higher-end mitumba stalls boast this year's fashions, tastefully displayed, but the perfect Dockers in 2003 were priced at $5.00 (and in 2008 were close to $8.00), so this high-end merchandise was far out of reach for the poor and accessible only to Tanzania's upper classes. Blue jeans, too, are high-end items, and the shoppers poring over the blue jeans are discerning consumers, often with a better sense of what is in (how many pockets? how much flare?) than the original purchaser. The young people in Dar es Salaam are as fashion savvy as young Americans, with a flawless sense of the hip and unhip. Georgetown student Henri Minion spent the summer of2008 in Dar es Salaam living with a host family, and I asked him to study the role of mitumba in daily life. One of the first things that Henri noticed was that the mitumba-clad students at the University of Dar es Salaam not only were well dressed, but they blended right in, fashionwise, with the American students visiting from Washington. The market mechanism in African mitumba markets is considerably more flexible than in an American department store. The Dockers with waist sizes in the low 30s sell for more than those with sizes in the 40s, as Tanzanians in general lack Americans' paunches. Otherwise-identical polo shirts can vary in price as well, with more popular colors and sizes commanding a premium. Prices trend up at the end of the month when many workers get paid, but drift lower during periods between paychecks. Perhaps the most interesting pricing behavior is evident in the divide between men's and women's clothing, as both supply and demand influences lead to significant price discrimination against the men. First, because Western women buy many more new clothes than men, they throw away many more clothes as well. Ed Stubin estimates that the truckloads arriving from the Salvation Army contain between two and three times as much womens clothing as men's. Women are also more particular about the condition of their clothing, so about 90 percent of what is cast aside by women is still in good condition. Men, however, not only buy less clothing but wear it longer, so only half of the men's clothing received by the used clothing exporters is in good condition. On the supply side, the bottom line is that world supply contains perhaps seven times as much women's clothing in good condition than it does men's. African demand exacerbates this imbalance, as African women's clothing preferences exclude much of Western fashion while men clamor for the limited supply of T-shirts, khakis, and suits that are in good condition. The end result of this supplyand-demand dynamic is that in the mitumba markets, similar clothing in good condition may cost four to five times as much for men as it does for women. I first met Geofrey Milonge in 2003 at his T-shirt stall near the center of the Manzese market. Geofrey stands tall and shiny-black, with the languid pride and gentle manner that seem to be the national traits of the Tanzanians. Geofrey arrived from the countryside in the early 1990s, hoping to escape the rural poverty of his village in the interior. Geofrey had started out on the sidewalk with just a single 50-kilo bale of clothing, which he had purchased on credit. Within a few years, Geofrey had three mitumba stalls in the Manzese market, each catering to different types of consumers. His T-shirt stall was neatly laid out, with hundreds of T-shirts lining the walls on hangers. In 2003, Geofrey was selling between ten and fifty T-shirts per day, usually for between 50 cents and $1.50. Almost all of Geofrey s T-shirts were from America. The labels showed that most of the T-shirts were originally born in Mexico, China, or Central America, and most of the T-shirts also reveal something about their life in America. The college and professional sports team shirts (Florida Gators, Chicago Bulls) are ubiquitous, and winning teams' shirts fetch higher prices. Washington Redskins shirts move slowly, but Geofrey had earlier in the morning received $2 for a Pittsburgh Steelers shirt. U.S. sportswear logos are popular, tooNike, Reebok, Adidasbut Geofrey's customers can easily tell the fakes (cheaper, coarser cotton) from the genuine. Middle-American suburbia hangs neatly pressed as a backdrop to the more valuable sports logos. Across the back of the stall is a Beaver Cleaver caricature of America: Weekend activities (Woods Lake Fun Run 1999), family vacations (Yellowstone National ParkDon't Feed the Bears), social conscience (Race for the Cure), and neighborhood teams (Glen Valley Youth Soccer) are some of the customers' choices. Geofrey is very careful about where he buys from. The .sellers can hide all kinds of garbage in the middle of a bale, so it pays to know your suppliers and to make sure that they know that if they give you garbage you won't be back. Geofrey prefers to buy bales that have been sorted in the United States or Europe, rather than in Africa. The U.S.-sorted bales cost a bit more, but the jewels are less likely to have been skimmed off and you get a lot less junk. In the world of mitumba, an unbroken U.S.-sorted bale is a high-end luxury good. In her study of the second-hand clothing trade in Zambia, anthropologist Karen Hansen found the perverse manifestations of the preference for castoffs fresh from American bales.5 In the world of mitumba, Hansen found, consumers seek out "new" clothing that is wrinkled and musty-smelling. A fresh-pressed or clean-smelling garment cannot possibly have spent weeks or months in a compressed bale in a warehouse or shipping container; therefore, it is the more wrinkled and musty clothing that is likely to be "new" from America, while the fresh-pressed and clean-smelling clothing is more likely to be "old"that is, worn or presorted in Africa.

PANNING FOR GOLD IN TANZANIA

Mitumba dealers told me repeatedly that 90 percent of a bale's value comes from 10 percent of the items. For every GAP shirt in perfect condition that might fetch $3 there will be a dozen pieces that will be hard to unload even at 50 cents. Once the few jewels have been skimmed, the bale's market value drops dramatically. As a result, successfully plying the mitumba trade is about keeping track of jewels. A bale consisting only of suburban activities will be a losing proposition for Geofrey. If the sports teams, GAPs, and Nike snowflakes have been pilfered, the Fun Run and family vacation T-shirts that are left will not allow him to cover his costs. In Dar es Salaarm just as in Brooklyn, the business is all about snowflakes. Geofrey told me that when he gets the chance to skim for jewels himself, he takes it. Many importers order clothing in larger bales, say 500 or even up to 1,500 pounds, which are too large for a single dealer to purchase. In these cases, the importer or wholesaler hosts a party of sorts, to which Geofrey and his peers will try to cadge an invitation. Sometimes, the dealers will pay 1,000 to 2,000 schillings ($1 to $2) to be invited. There are refreshments and a competitive camaraderie leading up to the highlight of the party: the breaking open of the bale. The bale breaking is a highlight, because only if mitumba dealers can see the breaking with their own eyes can they be sure that the jewels have not been skimmed, and in a large bale from the United States, the chances of valuable jewels are high. The mood is festive and raucous because of the surprise to come: You just never know what the Americans will throw away, and to be invited to the party to get first crack at the jewels can mean a windfall for the week. The wholesaler breaks the bale and the melee begins. A 1,000-pound bale might contain up to 3,000 articles of clothing, and almost every bale-will contain surprises. The dealers begin a competitive rummaging and quickly pull out the jewels. Multiple mini-auctions for the jewels take place simultaneously: The spot less Nike attracts offers of $1, which quickly rise to $1.50 and then $2. The bab'_ overalls with the tags still attached draw bids of 50 cents, then 75, and finally $ 1.25 A special find is to uncover a group of identical itemssix matching yellow sweaters say, or a dozen blue twill shirtsthe matching clothing has a ready and profitable market as uniforms for businesses. The mini-auctions at the bale-breaking parties are close to a perfectly com putative market. There are many buyers; there is perfect information; there is, as a economist might say, excellent price discovery. And there is good fun. The ek ment of surprise keeps it a fun market as well as a functioning one, and the part is a treasure hunt as well as a market. The hunt for treasure does not stop with th clothing but extends to the pockets, as Americans throw away not just perfect! good clothing but perfectly good money as wellU.S. dollars, no less. The most valuable jewels will never make it to the crowded mitumba market Instead, the top-of-the-line jewels hang from trees in the commercial area near to harbor, close to Dar es Salaam's handful of office towers and banks, and its second-floor walk-up stock exchange. These jewelsa perfect suit, say, or a like-new pro; dresshang like solitaires from the trees on the main boulevard, away from tl pedestrian hubbub of the markets. A trader lucky enough to nab such a jewel w hire a helper to sit under the tree and guard the jewel until it is purchased, or un nightfall, whichever comes first. The middle and upper classes often do not enter the crowds at the market though they too are dressed in mitumba Justas a wealthier family might have he to shop for food, many Tanzanians also have relationships with mitumba deale who know their size and style preferences, and keep a watch for just the right suit or dress shirt. Such personal shoppers make house and office calls when just the right jewels turn up in the bales. When Geofrey Milonge emerges from the competitive market as a buyer, he almost immediately joins another perfectly competitive market as a seller. There are hundreds of stalls and thousands of T-shirts in Dar es Salaam, and the consumers have nothing if not choices. At the other end of the spectrum from the jewels are the dregs, the clothing that is hard to unload at any price. Most mitumba dealers have a card table or two in the middle of their stall that is piled high with clearance items that havent sold. While the vendors' better offerings will neatly line the stall on hangers, the dregs are simply piled up, mitumbas answer to the clearance table at Wal-Mart. In the larger mitumba markets, many stalls have a worker with a microphone who drones on in a mesmerizing chant to entice shoppers to stop. As evening approaches, the competition intensifies because the shopkeepers would much rather unload a few more garments than pack them until the next day. The voices from the microphones form a cacophony that gets louder and louder as the afternoon wears on. The stall owners like Geofrey Milonge are especially loath to pack up the clearance-table items as darkness approaches. The Swahili chants ring out as the prices for items on the clearance table drop like a sharp curve along with the sun. By the end of the day, the clothing on the clearance table that sold for a dime at noon might go for two for a penny. For Geofrey Milonge, the day ends in a seller's competition as intense as the buyer's competition with which he started the morning. If he rests in the morning, the competition will snag the jewels, and if he rests in the evening, the competition will snag his customers. The markets at the center of Geofrey's livelihood are more flexibleand closer to a "real" marketthan anything the T-shirt has experienced before. With no barriers between himself and the market, Geofrey must adjust his selling prices by men's or women's, by size, by color, by weather, and by time of day and time of month, and he must adjust his buying prices at the bale-breaking party by trying to predict who will happen by that morning, what they will want, and what they will pay.

FINDING GEOFREY

I tried to track down Geofrey in 2007 and again in 2008. In 2007, the telephone number I had did not work and Google turned up nothing. I wrote to him at the address I had written down, but the letter was returned to me months later. I asked two people who had been helpful to me in Tanzania to see whether they could track him down, but I again came up empty-handed. In 2008,1 gave Georgetown student Henri Minion the mission of finding Geofrey Milonge. Henri was studying in Dar for the summer. He would have six weeks. While I remembered the approximate location of Geofrey's T-shirt stall (and of course had Geofrey's picture), this was no help because the Manzese market had closed and had in large part been replaced by other mitumba markets throughout the city. But the mission to find Geofrey seemed to be off to a good start. I had another contact in Dar es Salaam who knew Geofrey (I will call him "Mike"not his real name), and he quickly agreed to assist Henri. For weeks, Henri tried to connect withjvlike. And for weeks, the meetings were canceled or postponed. The concept of "Tanzania Time" is often used by Western diplomats and businesspeople to describe life in Dar. And it was apt for Henri: Tanzania Time meant Maybe Later. Or Maybe Not. As Henri's time in Dar es Salaam was coming to a close, it appeared that the mission to find Geofrey would be unsuccessful. When Henri last tried to connect with Mike, he learned that he was in Amsterdam. Mike promised that his secretary would call Henri, but she did not. Ever resourceful, Henri received a tip from a friend about another person who would be Willing to help. He called the gentleman, and agreed to meet at his office the next day. When Henri arrived, no one there had heard of the gentleman Henri had spoken with. With just days left in Tanzania, Henri was not going to give up. Henri had gotten to know Elina Makanja, a freelance journalist and teaching assistant at the University of Dar es Salaam. Elina was an enthusiastic mitumba shopper, and she agreed to help. The day before Henri was to leave Tanzania, Elina found Geofrey Milonge in the market. I thought of Henri's mission to find Geofrey a few months later, when I was chatting with Julia Hughes. We were discussing which countries might soon be competitive apparel producers for the U.S. market. "What about Sub-Saharan Africa?" I asked Julia. Julia sighed. "Its sad," she said. "It's just so hard to do business there." Tanzania Time, or living life to a slow and unscheduled rhythm, can quickly become a charmed way of life for a visitor. For an apparel company needing to stock its shelves for the next season, however, Tanzania Time was a risk they were unwilling to bear. Happily, in 2008, Geofrey's mitumba business was healthy and growing. Since 2003, he had opened four more stores, and now had a total of seven shops throughout Dar es Salaam. Geofrey had also become active as a wholesaler. Where a few years before he had been purchasing clothing in bales, he was now importing shipping containers from the United States and Europe and selling bales to other mitumba dealers, and he often hosted his own bale-breaking parties. As Geofrey gained experience in international trade, he was diversifying into other goods. By late 2008 Geofrey was importing building materials such as cement, and had also invested in real estate. When I first met Geofrey, he spoke only Swahili, but in late 2008 we were corresponding by e-mail in English. He wrote to me that he had recently spent a month in London, researching prices and drumming up suppliers. Though the global supply of used clothing is increasing, Geofrey has observed steady increases in the prices at which he sells clothing. He estimates that the prices for good-quality clothing in the markets have approximately doubled during the past five years. The increase in the price of good-quality but basic T-shirts was lotver but still healthy: Geofrey said that T-shirts that had sold for SI in 2003 were selling for about SI.50 in 2008. Ed Stubin and Geofrey Milonge describe this global industry with remarkably similar stories. In both cases, survival depends on their skill in spotting the jewels among the snowflakes and knowing their value in the market. Both men stress that they depend on personal relationships with suppliers and personal knowledge about their customers. On both sides of the Atlantic, the snowflake imperative keeps the businesses small and nimble, in close touch with suppliers and customers. Once you stop paying attention, or take your eye off the T-shirt river, or off your customer, you're finished. Here, at the end of the T-shirt's life, is a global industry where it pays to be the little guy, where the power equation is flipped upside down away from the multinational corporations. Indeed, the grandfather and founder of the used clothing business in Tanzania was the victim of his own success. His far-flung empire, though built on profits from the used clothing trade, became much too big to keep track of snowflakes.

TOO BIG FOR USED BRITCHES

Mohammed Enterprises Tanzania Limited (METL) is today one of the largest private companies in Tanzania, a conglomerate involved in manufacturing, agriculture, and trade. METL manufactures soap, sweeteners, cooking oil, textiles, clothing, and bicycles, and it owns 31,000 hectares of farmland producing sisal, cashews, and dairy products. METL is also a major trading house selling sesame seeds to Japan, pigeon peas to India, cocoa to the United States, and beeswax to Europe. METL seems to operate as a completely Westernized company today, committed to market awareness, customer focus, and corporate responsibility. Even METL's rise is a Western-sounding story. As the family story goes, Gulam Dewji, METEs chairman, got his start in the 1960s by arbitraging onions in rural Tanzania. He drove a rickety truck across the crumbling non-roads, finding villages that had extra onions and connecting them with villages that had too much squash. He had a sense of market trends and impeccable timing, and he gradually added trucks and employees. In another place and time, Gulam Dewji might have run a hedge fund, but in 1960s Tanzania, Gulam used his market-timing talents on onions. Gulam remembers that the villagers, while poor, usually had enough to eat. They did not, however, have clothing, at least not to speak of. In rural Tanzania at the time, adults were mostly in rags and children were mostly naked. Currency controls meant that hard currency was rarely available to import clothing, and mismanagement meant that the local textile industry was poorly equipped to supply the local market. There was special official scornand an outright banon mitumba. Though it was illegal to import used clothing, much made it through the porous borders with Mozambique and Kenya. But it was a furtive and haphazard trade, an underbelly business that was lubricated by bribes to border guards in the middle of the night. In 1985, Julius Nyerere stepped down and the mitumba trade was legalized. Gulam immediately saw the business opportunity presented by the liberalization. From.his decades of traveling through the rural areas he knew that people wanted decent clothing. It was not a matter of emulating Westerners, it was instead a matter of pride: Tanzanians had no desire to look like Americans, they wanted to look like well-dressed Tanzanians. Gulam went to America and began to meet with used clothing exporters. During the next 10 years, METL's mitumba business grew rapidly and Gulam was soon importing 4,000 tons of used clothing per month into the port at Dar es Salaam. Mitumba quickly reached not only the cities but far into the rural areas as well. A network of traders plied the backcountry as Gulam had once done with onions, and mitumba markets soon sprang up in every town. Gulam purchased the clothing from American dealers in huge bales weighing up to 2,000 pounds apiece. Compared to the intricate sorting and mining processes that characterize the business today, the process was loose at best. Often the clothing had been sorted into just three categories: Category A contained only clothing that was in like-new condition; Category B clothing was in fairly good shape, a bit faded, perhaps, or missing a button; and Category C contained garments that were torn or stained. The bales were delivered to METEs cavernous warehouse, where they were broken up and sorted again and readied for market. Just as Ed Stubin had once found it easiermost of the clothing he sorted was saleable at a profitGulam, too, found the early days to be the good old days. People in Tanzania had had so few choices and so little income that they welcomed almost everything from America. A bit of wear made little difference, especially in the countryside, as the clothing was usually a step up from the rags for the adults or the nakedness for the children. Gulam could sell almost everything that arrived in the bales from America, usually at a profit. At the beginning, there were still many self-reliance ideologues who believed that the practice of wearing the white worlds castoffs was shameful. Gradually, however, the ideologues toned down and began to dress in mitumba as well. Indeed, as Karen Hansen found in Zambia, the availability of mitumba was put forth as evidence of progress in the village. ("There is even mitumba now," residents would say, so as to point to the improved quality of life.6 ) But with widespread acceptance also came the maturing of the market and the erosion of Gulams first-mover advantages. METL was growing and diversifying into other businesses, and the agility required to keep up with the mitumba trade was difficult to maintain. There were few barriers to entry, and it seemed that almost everyone had a friend of a friend in the United States or Europe who could begin to send over bales of clothing, so hundreds of nimble entrepreneurs emerged to buy and sell mitumba. The mitumba trade was an intensely personal business, built relationship by relationship as had happened with Gulam and his American suppliers. The relationships were needed to keep unhappy surprises in the bales minimum and happy surprises frequent enough to engender continued loyalty but not so frequent as to erase the black ink. The delicate balance required by the snowflake business required constant attentionattention that Gulam wanted to focus on other parts of METLs activities. Another problem for Gulam was that customers were getting pickier. Not only had the market for Category C clothing all but disappeared, customers now wanted certain styles and certain colors at certain times. Without the time or attention to keep his ear to the ground in the marketplace, Gulam found it difficult to compete with the small entrepreneurs who spent their energies staying on top of consumer preferences. Gradually, Gulam ceded his mitumba business to smaller traders. . Partly because of his success in the mitumba trade, small was what he wasn't. But for the entrepreneurs to follow him, there were opportunities, and chances for little guys to participate in a global market.

questions:

1. how does this artlice define or describe globalizationandsome key detailsabout it;reflect on them
2. are they complimentary or contradictory definitions?
3. Do they all seem to have a place or do some cancel others out?
4. Do yousee what a huge phenomenonglobalizationis when you look at all the definitions together?