Yesterday we took a drive into Aberdeen to visit a friend of Haja's. Even going out for a day trip she dressed exquisitely in a long copper colored satin dress with spaghetti straps and a diamond-like broach clasping it together on her chest. Classy black sandals glittering with fake diamonds adorned her feet She is very slender and wishes that she could put on more weight to become 'round'. Her friend Fatima was also stunning and quite a character. Fatima is half Sierra Leonian, half Lebanese, with a tiny waist and an enormous bosom (I would say size E). Her style is a little different from Haja's. She wore a tight leopard-skin tank top, a pink looped belt with silver lining, skin hugging jeans and platform stiletto heels, yet somehow she pulled it off and looked very glamorous.
Haja getting ready to go out:
Fatima was very generous and cooked us a meal of rice and a delicious tasting paste. The name of the dish was 'green'. At her house Fatima took off most of her clothing and wandered around in a black lacy bra and underpants. A friend of theirs, Margaret, was also there. The girls grabbed me and we hung out in Fatima's bedroom and I got to listen to that week's gossip. All of the girls have older white men as boyfriends. Fatima's first husband was Dutch and in his 70's. He recently died and left Fatima's daughter Sade $400,000 - which is the equivalent of being a millionaire many times over here. Fatima, 29, is now married to Michael, an American who sets up accounting systems intended to counter corruption. Michael was most recently posted in Liberia and is waiting for funding to come through from the American government to renew his contract. Fatima is the one person we have met that has expressed cynicism about Independence Day, claiming (correctly) that the country is worse fifty years later than before the British left.
Margaret's boyfriend Mark was also there - they live in The Gambia (fantastic for sex tourism if that's your thing) and had returned for the Sierra Leone Independence Day festival. He is 55 and English, and she is 27. Margaret has another boyfriend, also called Mark, and she is two month's pregnant with his baby. The two Marks know about each other and frequently exchange insults via telephone, but the older Mark is not yet aware that Margaret is pregnant, so I am sure sparks will fly in a month or so.
Haja, 29, has been quieter about her men, but according to Sue, a British volunteer who is here for six months, she was recently dating Mike - the Extra Mile program director, white and in his sixties. Haja left on vacation to spend a month in Ghana, but it turns out she was actually in Bo, another city in SL, with a new boyfriend, also white, in his fifties, and apparently very well endowed!
Everyone is very envious of Fatima and her gigantic breasts. She jiggled them around and pulled down her bra to ensure us that they were real (in hindsight, it couldn't be humanly possible)! She said that she wanted plastic surgery to remove her (non-existent) stretch marks. Haja asked what the side effects of breast enhancement were and when I mentioned that you could lose sensitivity in your 'sensitive areas' they were all horrified and jumped into a conversation about female circumcision. Around 75% of women here are circumcised, but Haja, Margaret, and Fatima said that they had refused to have it done. They talked about their friends who were circumcised and how they would have sex with fifty different men and still feel nothing, not even when the men went down on them (this was accompanied by a tongue licking demonstration from Fatima!).
Haja either felt embarrassed of me or sorry for me, wearing grimy sweat pants for the third day in a row and insisted that I wear one of her shirts. The blouse was lovely but I didn't do it justice, and at Fatima's place the girls tried to find me something else to wear. After much trying on of outfits, and quite a bit of humiliation because none of her clothes would fit over my hips (although the girls insisted that they would love to have a backside as big as mine) thanks to Fatima's generosity I am now the proud owner of a skin-tight dayglo pink, green, yellow, and blue zebra patterned tank top. I have also been invited to go clubbing which I am sure would be an illuminating experience.
