Fit and trim like Hillary Clinton

5/14/09
My friend Sali is just a riot. She’s the one who I pluck her eyebrows for her. She really should be a fashion model or something, but she loves her job as a birthing and doctor’s assistant at the CSCOM. Away from her family and without a lot of educated, single people her age to hang out with, she’s as content as can be. Sometimes we goof around in the maternity after the work is done, taking each other’s blood pressure, height, and weight. I step on the scale today. Still about 6 pounds up from when I left last July.
“Aminata,” she says, “you’re getting really fat!” Now I’m pretty used to Malians saying this to me by now, but its usually followed by praise and admiration. Today Sali is concerned. “You can’t keep getting fat like this. If you go back to America, they won’t even recognize you. You should go on a diet.”
A diet? Coming from a Malian? “Sali,” our other friend Mariam says, “she’s fine, she doesn’t need a diet.”
“Yes, you should go on a diet so that you can look like Barack Obama’s secretary.”
“Who?”
“Barack Obama’s secretary that was in that magazine we were looking at. You said it was his secretary.” I’m racking my brain now. Who is she talking about? Hilary Clinton? Did I corrupt this sweet little village with magazine’s of American propaganda and vanity?
And though I know a fair amount about nutrition (including realizing that white rice every day will probably add up and that I have no other choice) I ask out of pure curiosity. “Sali, how do I go on a diet?”
“When you wake up in the morning, don’t eat breakfast. At noon, eat lunch. But at night, don’t eat dinner. Just lunch, and then you’ll look just like Barack Obama’s secretary!”
It’s kinda funny, but also a little disturbing at the same time.