Amanda Leigh Lichtenstein

Skirt, scarf, or both; sling for a child, basket for shopping, or both; bought to honor a special occasion, to give as a gift, or just to feel good tomorrow; its distinctive, one-line jina a proverb, a plea, a proclamation or a sunny burst of whimsy; above all, a social statement on a colorful cotton cloth. From rural villages to city streets, women and girls along East Africa’s coast do more than wear the popular rectangular kanga: They weave it into life, from birth to death, a “social medium” worn, traded and treasured, for designs, messages and memories.

Under Arab, Portuguese, German and English rule, commerce and the town’s strategic location on East Africa’s coast made Bagamoyo a leading port from the 1300s to the late 1800s. Now Tanzania has unveiled a 30-year plan to transform the town and environs into the largest seaport the coast has ever seen and link it, once again, to the rest of the Indian Ocean and China.