WHO HAS THE PROBLEM?

When I was coming to Africa, I had a secondary, secret agenda; to become just a little bit emaciated! I thought it seemed fairly safe to assume that in a country as poor as Tanzania, food would be scarce and I wouldn’t be getting my usual (too) big portions. Hence, my generous glutes (arse) and stomach might shrink. It felt like a good deal – I could help a very needy cause AND get thin!

So yes, while African people are trying to get more (albeit enough to survive), I was hoping I would get a little less. Ironic really isn’t it. And tragic on another level.

When I think of famine, my mind is filled with images of tiny, frail bodies, little arms and sunken eyes staring into the camera. They were the images of Ethiopia which filled our TV screens during my childhood. I still associate those images with famine and hunger.

Tanzania is one of the poorest countries in the world. There is a serious food shortage. The Tanzanian government have appealed for tons of food to try to relieve the situation. And now with the drought, it will take years to get the country back on track.

Some of the children in our school are painfully thin. Last week I saw a child with body ulcers, a classic sign of malnutrition. He also had rickets and symptoms of a hernia. This is fairly typical in Tanzania. And yet to my confusion, by and large, the mamas aren’t thin. African mamas and bibis (grandmothers) are BIG ladies. They’re often quite tall and pretty wide.

I was trying to work out how this is possible. I’ve seen what they eat – there’s a LOT of beans, maize and vegetables in their diet. They don’t have the money or opportunity to buy highly fatty foods, as far as I can see. They rarely eat the dairy products that we consume so much of in our Western world and consumer little meat as it’s a real luxury here.

They certainly don’t have the luxury of cars to drive in, which is what makes a lot of us Westerns fat! They walk everywhere, usually with a heavy bucket on their head. All of this leads me to believe their rotund bodies are as a result of genetics, as someone suggested to me. Apparently thousands of years ago when Africans were hunters and gatherers, their bodies stored fat and so their genetic make-up is now programmed to do that. It seems like a fairly reasonable explanation to me because none of the large ladies that I have met so far seem like they have a lot of money to spend on food.

As I drove along a road today, I watched some large local women walking along. To judge them by our Western standards, these women were fat – they would possibly even be classified as obese. They would be the pariahs of our society. And yet, as I observed them sashaying along, in bright skirts or sarongs, matching tops, some wearing matching bandanas and standing tall, I couldn’t help marvel at how beautiful and elegant they looked. And I would be very happy to be their size, if I could carry it off in such a stylish way. They really looked fabulous.

One of our local teachers recently remarked to one of our Western teachers “You’re getting fat, soon you will be the fattest”. The Western teacher was quite appalled and insulted, not realizing that it was a big compliment in Africa. Her African colleague still struggles to understand why she was insulted!

In fact, in complete contrast to our world, in Africa it’s a very admirable thing to be fat. Apart from the genetic make-up, to be rich symbolises health and wealth, much in the same was that having white skin in Asia is a sign of wealth (the lower class in Asia work outdoors in the sun in Asia and have tanned skin, so many aspire to have white skin, as a symbol of wealth)..

So while many starve in Africa, and struggle for food, in the Western world only a few thousand miles away, the mindset is completely different – light-years away! We suffer from more emotional maladies when it comes to food; we have become obsessed by diets, and for many this obsession turns into one of a variety of eating disorders like anorexia or bulimia. And although I would never undermine the seriousness of these illnesses, it seems ridiculous that we should suffer from our excess of food or worst still starve ourselves voluntarily, while others die from the lack of it!

It reminds me of the water situation; there is either too much (New Orleans) or too little (Tanzania). It feels like our world is just a little bit mixed up and I can’t help but think the guilty ones are we in the West.