My flat butt

With all of the fashionable diet schemes that are constantly bombarding us (i.e. Atkins diet, Jenny Craig, South Beach Diet, Weight watchers, etc) its not hard to forget that the rest of the world may not have the same views regarding weight, particularly towards the female sex. The female ideal to be model slim meshed with other psychological pressures caused by our society has engendered a widespread phenomenon which we know as anorexia. when I try to explain the concept to Malagasy they look at me like I've gone bonkers. "How do they work if they don't eat?", "How do they breastfeed?," they'll ask me. Admittedly I've lost a few kilos since arriving to this country, probably due to the amount of rice and physical activity involved in my daily activity. I've lost count of the number of people who've asked if I'm sick or if I'm just not tamana (at home) and want to return to the States because of my change in weight. At the start of my meetings with my women's micro enterprises they would chat at least five minutes about this issue and conclude that I have frequent diarrhea since I'm homesick and that's why I've lost weight. Before coming here, I've never become offended when someone told me I look thin. To people at least in the countryside this means that the woman is unable to work, is sick, and probably will not be able to bare many children, all essential for life out in the sticks. In other words you are not as attractive. I used to receive jeers and whistles from icky men more often when I first came in country. The amount of jeers that I received has gone down whereas a friend who actually gained weight has the opposite issue now.

Another part of my body that I had to say goodbye to is my buttocks. this has been a very depressing farewell. I've asked one of my Malagasy friends how I can regain my butt. Her answer like many other answers found here is to eat more rice. Nope that's not humanely possible in Madagascar. Just today I was looking through a stack of men's frip (used clothing) since men's pants seem to fit better on me these days. It was a bit embarrassing how many sideways glances I received from the guys browsing next to me. Oh well, these new pair of slacks seem to fit a lot better than my old jeans so it'll have to do for now.