Sunscreen

Aging is a natural life process.  This is a fact I don’t need to remind us all.  However aging is exacerbated by exposure to the sun.  I remember people in my stage (training group) ask if the current volunteers were a lot older than us when we first landed in-country.  Little did we know we would look like this in a year’s time.  I was shocked when I saw my stage for the first time in almost a year during our last conference.  Many of us had crow’s feet where none existed before.  The impact of the sun had left blemishes and our skin more leathery.  Of course there are other factors that contribute to our enhanced “ripened” state, such as physical and emotional stress, but out of all of these the sun is to be the most blamed.  DO NOT challenge the Malagasy sun, particularly on the coasts, because you can be assured that it will win.  Our complexion is lighter than that of our African counterparts, therefore more susceptible to cracking.

Wear sunscreen. I’ve ditched the mascara, the foundation, the blush and lipstick.  My prep work before exposing myself to the public includes dousing myself with sunscreen.  This has become a necessary daily regime.   I go through a tube every month.  Straw hats and sunglasses have become important accessories to me.  More than cosmetic reasons I’m afraid of skin cancer.  This brings to my mind asinine practices such as membership sun tanning that we as Americans can’t get enough of.  I understand why people do this, but in the end I ask myself why…really why? Our skin is our largest organ.  It is a living part of us that needs to be cared for just as any other part of our bodies.  And with the encroachment of ozone layer depletion, we need to grow ever more wary of the sun.