Unintentionally Hipster Guinean

* * All credit for this idea goes to Dante, one of my wonderful education volunteer colleagues. * *

It's become clear to me that the origin of the hipster movement in the U.S. has its roots  in Guinea.  

In Boston, I'd be walking down the street and I'd see a 20-something guy walking his fixie bike along, sporting a skin-tight pink unicorn shirt with plaid shirt over it, pants that follow the "If you've got it (it = legs as thick as pencil-sticks), flaunt it" rule, huge Raybans with clear lenses, and a pair of fancy-looking brown leather boots.  Oh, and he'd definitely have a handle bar mustache or mutton chops.

He could've looked like this, maybe you've seen him:

  

In Mamou, one of the largest cities near Ditinn, I saw a 20-something guy rolling down the main drag on his fixie bike, wearing a tight black hoodie with "Nasty Gurrrl" across the chest, a pair of tight, purple girl's jeans (I say "girl's jeans" because they had sequins on the rear, and I'm certain that a girl at my elementary school wore that exact pair on casual Fridays).  He was rocking a gigantic pair of  red, plastic aviators and a pair of pointy, white pleather shoes (very popular in Guinea).

ATTENTION HIPSTERS: he wasn't even trying to look alternative.  Isn't that ironic?

* If you're not familiar with the term "hipster", follow these links *

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hipster

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8G3T-E4rYU&noredirect=1

My student, for instance, accessorized his white shirt/blue pants uniform one day.  He wore a pencil-thin blue tie, a studded snakeskin belt, and red and white leather sneakers with plaid print on the backs.  Like this:

He looked, well... 

...fly.

Whilst on the topic of hipsters...  One evening I send a message to my friend, Juliette, saying:

              The #1 way to stave off  

              boredom in Guinea: play 

              hide-and-go-seek with 

              mouse in house.

Arnold really is terrible.  Generally, I’ll be eating dinner or working on a lesson plan, when he’ll start rustling around.  I’ll quickly shine my flashlight on him and he’ll freeze, thinking I won’t see him if he doesn’t move.

Juliette told me to get a life.

.

.

.

And to write a book called “Hipster Remedies.”

Chapter 1: Playing games with animals who don’t understand the rules, but you don’t care because it’s completely unique (and perhaps a little disconcerting) that all your friends are rodents and/or livestock.

Chapter 2: Being a vegetarian in Guinea, not because you don’t like meat, but because you have the opportunity to be the ONLY vegetarian in the entire country.

Chapter 3:  Wearing as much gaudy rainbow/glittery/plaid/neon/animal-print clothing as you like because you’ve always secretly wanted to but couldn’t stand the judgmental stares at clothing story check-out counters in the US.

Let me tell you, in an African country where people pair Sesame Street hoodies with “African Annihilation” t-shirts, pretty much any stylistic choice goes.

Without fail, almost every marketplace I walk into has those kinds of shirts.  It’s bizarre.  If I can get a picture of one, I'll send it to you, but for the mean time, look into it.