A friend forwarded me this story from the BBC, Ivory Coast’s ‘big-bottom’ craze. There’s a song in praise of bums, which spawned a dance which shows them off, which, naturally, spawned an industry of medicines to give you a bum big enough to be worthy of the dance. Locals hawk Chinese-made medicines full of vitamin B12 to help make the weaker-sexed even more desirable than we already are worthy of being…
Of all the things that are funny about this, I think my favorite paragraph is this one. So earnest:
- At the Micronutrient Information Centre at Oregon State University in the United States, Dr Victoria Drake says she knows of no scientific evidence that vitamin B12 can be used to treat anything except vitamin B12 deficiency.
Why Oregon State? I don’t know either. And Chinese-made medicines? Didn’t Ivory Coast get the memo about the Killer Toothpaste?
I left a comment under African news, but just wanted to say , I am not a subscriber-type in general, but you are writing things in such a funny fresh, and serious meaningful way about so many things- I so look forward to every new entry. I am really learning so much. I will forward your site to our daughter in Kigali(a newbie, as you say).
Ha! Finally, some justice.
There was a great dance in Mali called the Zaban Ci – a “zaban” is a brousse orange- big, thick skinned guy. “Ci” is to break something. Thus, the dance mimed squeezing a large thing between your knees, while wiggling your butt around as much as possible!
Quite the ruckus when women would break it down at a dance! And adorable yet disturbing to see little girls doing it….