Needed: One Wrapper

I guess people really do mean different things when they refer to a wrapper. I usually think of a wrapper as being the whole outfit made from a 6-yard piece of brightly-colored Nigerian wax, batik cloth used in dressmaking. It includes a wrap-around, ankle-length skirt, a matching blouse, and a head tie made of whatever cloth remains.

So, when I was told that Pro-Life Evangel needed help to buy the contents of a basket for each new woman entering the hostel, including a new wrapper, I felt a pang of jealousy.

I wrestled with my dark feelings. A new wrapper costs quite a lot of money. I can't afford a new one very often. And they want to give those girls new wrappers? It didn't seem fair. But that was because I had the wrong assumptions.

Over time I gained new insight. I did occasionally contribute 6-yard pieces of dress fabric. Then one day I discovered that, in fact, the 6-yard pieces I was giving the hostel were being carefully cut into three equal pieces, hemmed on the two raw edges, and becoming the wrap-around, ankle-length skirts for three women, not a complete outfit for one, as I had supposed.

Now I take pleasure and satisfaction in spending a few minutes here and there to hem two-yard pieces of cloth into wrapper skirts for women who sometimes come to the hostel with nothing but the clothes they are wearing.