My first ever beauty pageant

I must admit, at home I enjoyed watching 'toddlers and tiaras' on the TV occasionally. The spoilt children, pushy parents, ridiculous outfits and inevitable tantrums (from both the adults and the children) were amusing to watch, and especially  to laugh at. However, despite my enjoyment of beauty pageants on the television I would never have wanted to go to one in real life.

So if someone had told me that I would go to one in Namibia I would have been shocked to say the least. But if someone had gone one step further and had told me that I would actually be judging one I think I would have laughed in their face. Yet somehow that's where I found myself one Friday evening, sat between Daisy and Sachi in one of the many churches in Tses, ready to take up my position as 2nd Judge for one of the towns many beauty pageants.

The ridiculousness of the situation was not lost on me. Here I was in Namibia, in a village with one of the highest unemployment and crime rates in the entire country and yet I was sat about to judge women on how well dressed they were and who could walk properly in heels. But apparently beauty pageants are a really big thing in Namibia, and it already appears that this is something i'm simply going to have to get used to doing!

Not that I really minded, when we arrived we were each presented with a bottle of Coca cola and a plate quite literally overflowing with crisps, sweets and biscuits. Now anyone who knows me at all with know that if you give me unhealthy food and coca cola I will pretty much do anything, and so I settled down into my seat and tucked in!

Despite my initial scepticism it was, I must admit, an amusing and enjoyable evening. The contestants were all adult women (so thankfully we didn't have to judge any of our own leaners which would have been both difficult and potentially awkward. Not to mention our biased opinions against any of the naughty children!!!) and some of them were quite simply, old.






We had been worried about not knowing how to score properly, but when we arrived we were thankfully given categories to judge the contestants on (smile, outfit, walk and personality) And so we sat and watched as the ladies paraded in front of us. I'm not really sure what the usual procedure is for beauty pageant but that evening we had three categories of dress: casual, office and evening. It was especially interesting though because there was a mix between modern clothing and traditional clothing (although this did add a new level of difficulty to the judging!)







As we watched it soon became clear to us who the winner and the runners up were probably going to be. While the young women attempted to pout and be taken seriously, the older ladies really didn't seem to care if they looked good or not. Strutting across the stage, grinning from ear to ear they were absolutely hilarious and had the most amazing attitude I think i've ever seen.  They were quite simply brilliant to watch, and in all honestly, much more interesting and entertaining then the younger women.

In between each of the runway walks there was a little show put on to pass the time and keep all the kids entertained. Daisy and I were pretty shocked to see groups of our learners standing up and doing choreographed dances. What surprised us even more was that nearly all of the boys dancing were the ones who caused the most trouble in class, and actually they were pretty good. Watching them enjoying themselves on stage Daisy and I both had the same thought, that maybe dance could be our secret weapon with these boys, a way to get them to behave for us.

Unfortunately the inevitable eventually happened and Sachi, Daisy and I were called up onto the stage to join in with the dancing. At first the boys attempted to get us to join in with their dance but they were simply moving too fast for us to keep up and we gave up. But we did discover one thing - our learners cannot do belly dancing styled shaking. Finally we had found something which only we could do, and which completely bewildered our children - result!




The scores were eventually calculated and the winners announced. There were four prizes, Miss Attitude (unsurprisingly this prize went to the contestant with the biggest attitude - a brilliant old lady who strutted and wiggled her way across the stage) 2nd princess, 1st princess and then the winner.  And as I had suspected, the winners were all from the older generation!





 
The rest of the evening was spent taking pictures of the children (I think I've found a future 'miss attitude' from the little girl in red') and dancing.

Here beauty pageants are a fundraiser more than anything, an entry fee is taken at the door and the money normally goes towards solving a problem the Church is currently experiencing.

I've always been sceptical of beauty pageants and in most cases I think I would be still. But here they truly are just a bit of harmless fun, an entertaining way for the children to have fun together and a good way to raise money. The emphasis isn't really put on who looks the best or who has the prettiest outfit, but on the fun and enjoyment it creates, and so, surprisingly enough, I find myself approving!