KABANDA's MUSINGS: The skin factor

The women’s movement is in its post-teen years in many parts of Africa. However, it will take several years before women in Africa and almost all parts of the globe will stop trying to find what pleases men and try doing exactly that no matter the cost in terms of money and pain suffered. It would be understandable if the source of what pleases men was constant but when you think it has been found, the goalposts are shifted and women have to suffer all over again trying to meet the expected standards. At one time “Figure-8 women” were the perfection of beauty. A beautiful woman had a big bust, narrow waist and a huge behind so many women and older girls tried to conform by padding their breasts and butts and tightening their bellies with leather belts. And when they thought they had mastered the game, someone suggested pencil-thin women were beautiful. So, many women starved and even drank vinegar or alcohol to meet the expectations. In Uganda, among the Sabiny in the East, women and girls have their genitals mutilated in order to please their future husbands while further North among the Kakwa also in Uganda and among other people in Southern Sudan, all you have to do is simply knock out the lower incisors from your dental formula and you are the girl. One tribe in south eastern Ethiopia cares about nothing but your lower lip: they make an incision in the lower lip, insert a flat round plate and the wider the plate the greater the beauty. So you find that adult females cannot drink water without it spilling and you just cannot miss the beauty of many young and not so young women parading with their lips swinging from side to side after they have removed the plates. Unless they despise you, they keep it in their mouth. And to the Masaai of Kenya and Tanzania, beauty according to their men, lies in the ear lobe of women: make an incision, continuously stretch the earlobes and the wider they can stretch the more the beauty. The Hottentots in South-West Africa want nothing but shapely genitals. In Myanmar (formerly Burma) one tribe cares about nothing but the neck; the longer the better. So women from their teens pile loads of metallic rings around their necks which keep it stretched “up-wards” to the extent that their necks become weakened and can hardly carry anything. In Japan, the Geishas “saddled” their feet so tightly to meet the description of beauty. To many offspring of former slaves in the Western world, fair skin is a sign of beauty. So they bleached their skins and unfortunately African women copied the idea including some in Rwanda. The other day my dearest Datiliva came home with a group of people who go to her Church. One of them was the kind who would have been a beautiful young lady (by my standards) but she had bleached her skin so much I could see what she drank cascading down her throat. The woman said she was thirsty and was sweating profusely. Whenever she wiped sweat off her skin its colour would change and would only take time to be restored to its ‘original’ colour. After they had left, my friend who happens to be a Physician looked at me and my Dearest and asked if we could candidly talk to the young woman to which Datiliva answered in the affirmative. The friend wanted my dearest to tell the woman to stop bleaching because she was damaging not only her skin but her life in general at a rate she could not contemplate. Our physician visitor said, “Many bleaching or skin lightening/whitening products on the market in Rwanda contain toxic chemicals particularly mercury and Hydroquinone. Mercury is highly toxic, not only acutely but as a cumulative poison. When women apply it on their skins it penetrates it and goes into the blood stream. It is deposited in the liver so the person will feel thirsty as the body tries to remove it from the system. With continued use, the mercury deposited in the liver leads to its failure. The mercury may also be deposited in and leads to the darkening of lips. Equally dangerous is Hydroquinone. It blocks the production of the pigment Melanin which determines the colour of the skin. The reduction in the production melanin leads to faster results as the person’s skin colour changes very fast and can be seen after three days but loses because Melanin provides sun protection for the skin by absorbing ultraviolet light. Darker skin colours are less susceptible to sunburn and the overall effects of sun damage. That is why some people who have used skin lightening creams have dark spots referred to as solar lentigenes....” I told him my dearest does not use those creams and his scientific terms were making my head spin but Datiliva said she had bought a cream and wanted to be sure it was not the same. The man said finding out was easy, “We shall take a sample and mix it with hydro peroxide: if it changes colour to dark or black, chances are it contains mercury..’ he said. I told him they can discuss the details when they go to the laboratory but I was starving. Besides there is Rwanda Bureau of Standards whose job is to protect Rwandans from consuming toxic Products. ‘ If there are toxic products on the market, RBS will ban them, let us have lunch,” I pleaded. Email: ekaba2002@yahoo.com