A Beauty Contest - For men

(In Gall, Niger) Efad Dadi was working hard to prepare himself for the ancient custom of his desert people. He looked himself once again in the mirror. hHe had used milk from a white cow for his face and black eyeliner to bring out his eyes. He had put a white powder from the dried bones of a bird on his lips. Dadi smiled at himself in the mirror and added a little more eyeliner. Now he was ready.

Dadi belongs to the Wodaabe culture, A group of nomadic people who move from place to place in the Sahara desert in the West African country of Niger. For the Wodaabe, it is the men who have a beauty contest, and dadi was getting ready for the annual event.

Fifteen Wodaabe men have chosen to enter this year's contest. Dadi said he really wants to win the title of most beautiful. But he Knows it will be hard to win because the other 14 men are very beautiful. A previous winners of the beauty contest, Derre Chafou, says that most Wodaabe people are beautiful-women, men, and even babies.

Three Wodaabe women, all beautiful and unmarried, are the judges of the men's beauty contest. According to custom, one of these women asks the winner to be her husbans. The men will parade in front of the judges, smiling and trying to look beautiful. The judges choose the top three winners with a smile or a touch on the shoulder. The losers sadly walk away. They hav to win a bride the customary way-with a gift of cattle.

From childhood, small boy learn beauty tips from the woman of their family, When the boys are babies, mothers and sistes pull the arms legs of the boys to make their limbs long.

For the Wodaabe, beauty is so important that an ugly man does not care if his wif has a child by another man, just as long as the baby is beautiful. Wodaabe culture allows men to have more than one wife. The reserve is also true: women can have more than one husband.

The families of the men who enter the beauty contest may spend a year on the young men's costumes. They look for the perfect earrings and necklaces. The young man sometimes walk many kiometers to find a mountain with the right day and the right herb to make their red and yellow face paint.

But, being beautiful is not enough to win the contest. The Wodaabe believe that it is magic that makes their beauty contests even more different from other beauty contests. Men need to have jewelry with magical powers. When all of the men are beautiful, it is magic that will make a man a winner.

Efad Dadi didn't win the contests. Maybe he did not have the right magic. But he promises to try again because he wants a wife.

Kategoriler: