Bigger is better!!

In Liberia, it is beautiful to be ‘fat’. By fat, I don’t mean USA and UK-style obese. But for men, it is good to have a big belly. For women, it is good to be curvy. This is to do with fatness as being an indication of being well-fed, and thus of being relatively well-off. Well-off enough to ‘eat plenty’, at least. I can understand that it is beautiful for a woman to have curves. I can also understand why it would be considered a sign of health for a person to be fat. I can understand that if a person looks emaciated, it is not beautiful.
That said, when a woman from the US is told, ‘Wow, you are getting fat!’ it is quite difficult to take this as a complement. Although I try to convince myself that these comments can be translated into, ‘You are getting more beautiful’, it obviously isn’t so simple.
I have been told, ‘you are getting so fat!’ on a number of occasions. The comments started last November. E grabbed my arm and said, ‘Queen, wow! You are getting so fat!’ This totally caught me off guard, because I thought I was losing weight and toning up, thanks to my membership to the World Food Programme gym. Then E’s uncle J, and 3 of his uncle’s friends agreed, ‘Yeah, Queen, getting fat, like a true African!’ and J did a little muscle flex; J's sister poked my stomach. I told them, ‘I know you mean that as a complement, but you should know that when you tell a whi’ woma’ that she is getting fat, she will most likely get really offended.’ They could not understand why, but I told them to trust me. That didn’t stop them from commenting on my ‘fatness’ ever since.
When I went to Portugal for Christmas, maybe I did get ‘fatter’, thanks to my mom’s fantastic cooking and thanks to a week on the couch with the sinus infection from hell. Wow, did Liberians take notice of my slight weight gain upon my return! In addition to being told again, by E and his family, that I am getting ‘even fatter’, I have been told by 9 new individuals that I am getting fat. In Church S on the Wednesday evening service, which is attended by about 100 men and women, I got my usual moment in the spotlight, but this time the head pastor said, ‘We want to welcome back our sister Queen, she has been away for the Christmas time but now she is back, we bless her in Jesus’ name, and wow she is getting FAT like a true Liberian!’ I said a few words: ‘Praise the lord, glad to be back, yadda yadda yadda’ and the pastor, as usual, said, ‘and may you be filled with the Holy Spirit and given the gift of tongues’. After that moment, I began to seriously consider the ‘fasting’ part of their prayer and fasting weeks.