What has been on your mind lately? The whole world has economic problems at the moment and the stims packages are but cynically comforting. Presidents and Prime Ministers are engaged with their economic policy experts, day in day out, in brewing snake oils for their individual country economic reversals. The search for a plan which will deliver an immediate and tangible impact on lives now seem a full-time pre-occupation more than ever before.
Amidst the encircling gloom, a very toxic thinking and dangerous practice hangs like a storm over the African continent. Reports, emanating from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), say that some boneheaded Congolese women, stick MAGGI CUBES, yep, maggi the culinary companion into their anal canals with the sole purpose of acquiring rounded, bubbly buttocks. Because Congolese men prefer women with such physical ‘attributes’. What wilful ignorance!
Seriously, I do not know what they are drinking out there in the Congo, but they can keep it to themselves and I pray that women from other African countries would demonstrate a good sense from being contaminated, not to follow suit. This is not an indictment. This is a CONCERN because ignorance and illiteracy thrive on the Continent like daffodils in spring. The ridiculous and shameful secret may be old hat to you, dear reader but not to me.
According to a story posted on the bilingual internet news agency, afrik.com the repugnant practice has been until recently a taboo subject in the Congo. Now, Congolese top rumba musician Shiko Mawatu has taken the lid off on the practice in a song in his native Lingala titled Ntaba Bandundu. “you have already used eight from the ten you took from the kitchen, begins the song, use the remaining two to season the beans’, it went on.
Contemporary journalists and musicians with a social conscience, from that part of the world are speaking out loudly, kicking the taboo on to the long grass because of the number of reported cases of infections and even deaths. Some of the dead, reportedly committed suicide out of disappointment and failure to achieve their goals--the goal being a priceless, round and bubbly butts most pleasing I understand when dancing to their most energetic, sensual, nonstop yet entertaining rumba music.
The message from the dead and the infected is to the extent, a cautionary tale, targeted at African women whether Francophone or Anglophone of the futility of foie grassing, force- feeding their buttocks with Maggi cubes.
The story for all its worth has cracked the window just enough to log mud on the practitioners with the hope that some of the mud splatters on. Lead, Kindly Light.
Standing toe-to toe with excessive corruption, ethnic and religious wars are the potent cocktail of disease, dirt, dust, poverty, hunger, malaria, a high rate of infant-maternal mortality, VVF, HIV_AIDS, skin cancer, cervical cancer, breast cancer, somebody stop me. That’s a frightful plate-full. We do not need anymore health issues. Not now, not ever.
The DRC itself had been ravaged by violence and atrocities during it’s long, bloody and still-not-over-yet war. In 1998 alone, over 40,000 women were raped. Agency reports say that Congolese women begged the rebels for death instead of being raped and the rebels replied; “We can’t give you a good death”.
It’s just pretty rotten. Sticking maggi cubes indiscriminately flies in the face of decency and self destruct. It is saddening news that the same Congolese women lucky to be alive engage in a disastrous quest for big, fat butts not through cosmetic surgery (not that I am in support of surgery) but by pumping Maggi cubes into their anal canals. If Nestle Foods Ltd, motto {Good Food, Good Life}, makers of Maggi cubes intended their product to be used as suppositories or enemas anything other than what it says on the wrappers, they would have so stated.
If you are deluded to think that those women who empty their kitchen containers filled with Maggi cubes in a flash have lost their marbles, they have not lost their narratives. One female reacted to their tormentors thus:
Pourquoi le cube maggi n’est pas dangereux quand ca passe la ou je croyais entre plus sensible c’est a dire voie orale? Je ne crois pas qu’il soit dangereux par voie anale. Permettez moi d’en douter.
That is to say; “why is Maggi cube not dangerous when it passes through the mouth which is more sensitive? I do not believe that it could be dangerous when taken through the anus. Excuse me, I doubt it.”
I find no evidence of a special relationship between Maggi cube or any other seasoning brand or sauce in the markets and the acquisition of big buttocks but there are facts to suggest otherwise –stroke, death. And facts are strong! A vigilant medical doctor came to the rescue immediately he read what the female Maggi Cube addict and practitioner wrote. His words may stir up some strong sentiments in this piece. Personally, I do regret the sentiments expressed but not the language because it is germane to the subject under discussion.
Hear him: “par vioe orale on a des enzymes et autres antiseptiques qui protegent contre le produit contaminine` tandis que par voie anale le produit risqué des retrouver dans le sang pour autant qu’il y’ait des substances protectrices. Teins! Un exemple le rapport penis-anus pre`sente un risqué sur de contamination au vih alors que le cas oral-penis (fellation) present des risqué mais moindres.”.
Literally means,” There are enzymes and other antiseptic which protect humans against contaminated foods when food is taken orally whereas when taken anally, the food risks being found in the bloodstream where there are no protective substances. There you are. An example is anal sex which presents a risk of infection but in the case of fellation the risk is there but less.”
Who can explain the reasoning behind this innovative but infamous practice? This is the second time in my life that I have ‘sat’ on Maggi ‘s case. The first time was in the late eighties when out of duty and not curiosity I had to look up the contents of the magic cube. My assignment was to produce an hour- long television documentary on Banned Drugs and Foods in Nigeria, and their harmful contents. Laboratory tests showed a rather high level of salt content (about 56-70%) in making the popular cube. I can not say what the level is today.
Maggi cubes contain mono sodium glutamate (MSG) with iodine, soy beans, vegetable- fat and free from cholestral. MSG is another name for the daily common salt, and glutamate is the name given to the added amino acids.
The common signs and symptoms of allergy to mono sodium glutamate as in Maggi Cubes include, headache, nausea, burning sensation in the throat or back of the neck, chest pain, rashes or even difficulty with breathing etc.
These seasonings have had their brushes with the United States Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) in the past. However, reaffirmation from the FDA says that MSG and the related substances are safe ingredients for most people when taken at customary levels.
A company’s brand is it’s most valuable asset, not even the balance sheet can put a value on it. Nestle Foods Ltd prides itself in building it’s brand around the cultural dispositions of the country or region it is situate. I recall some of Nestle’s cookery programmes on the NTA, Maggi Cooking, and Sokoyokoto (make your husband happy), the latter I thought was a veritable vehicle for showcasing the consumption of Maggi cubes at customary levels. I still think so. How many cubes are sufficient for the average pot of stew for a family of four for example? Two, three, eight,ten in addition to cooking/table salt?
Any publicity, even a bad one is good publicity for a product. My hunch is that Nestle is preying, cashing in on the cultural preference of the Congolese male, he who prefers the woman with a big, bubbly buttocks to one sans such loud physical endowment. Say it ain’t so, Nestle.
Prove my summation and those of others wrong by joining hands with the government of the DRC to raise a nation-wide public enlightenment campaign, on the appropriate quantity and manner to using Maggi cube and sauce. Do this, please, as part of your corporate social responsibility and for the sake of the health of your teeming consumers; the illiterate and ill-educated African women. Put out the fire. Say, it ain’t so, Nestle.
Maudlyn Park wrote in from Cambridge, UK
She blogs at parkpost-parkpost.blogspot.com
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