Beauty

I envy the perfectly smooth deeply black skin of some of the girls here, while they get worried whenever I spend too much time in the sun, as they think “the whiter the better”. I would love to have a huge “afro”, loads of tiny black curls to occasionally plait elaborately. But little girls ask me to touch my hair, as it’s the same as that of dolls and they look at me in astonishment when I suggest that I’m thinking of cutting it very short (how can you!!!). While I’m worried about gaining weight, around here telling you “oh, you are getting “bigger”!” is considered a compliment and big “bottoms” are much appreciated by most men. Being tall might be the only thing we all consider a feature of beauty.

In men, beards and moustaches are highly appreciated: I’ve seen the ugliest men become “interesting” just because of the right amount of facial hair!

Also, while a man is expected to keep in shape to some extent, a belly is considered a trait of prosperity and probably richness and thus far from being considered a big no-no.

I guess it all has something to do with the fact that we usually consider beautiful what we don’t have (or have in limited quantity). And I also think it’s a matter of moving to the right place in order to be the next beauty queen! ;-)

Patience

Every African needs the patience of a saint to survive, or even just to get through a normal day without going insane.
What do you do when the bus you were riding on suddenly breaks down in the middle of nowhere? You wait. Eventually help will come. It may take minutes, hours, days, but help will come.
And what do you do when friends told you they were coming for a visit on Saturday and meanwhile it has become Sunday and then Monday? You wait. At some point they will appear at your front door waving, smiling, bringing gifts.
Or when the guy who owns the shop went for lunch and now it’s 5pm? Or when the gasoline truck hasn’t been showing up for weeks to fill up the gas station? Or when the cleaning lady tells you she went to attend a funeral and then disappears for a whole week? Or when, generally, someone tells you they’re “just on their way”? You wait, and wait, and wait… The incredible this is I’ve never seen anyone getting impatient or even stop smiling. I’ve never seen anyone get angry because of a delay. It’s as if time was a non-existing variable, something that is not worth being taken into consideration, much less stress about.