BUM                                                                                                                                      

 ►Fashion Pagne Baby carrier- The normal position for a baby is tied firmly to her mother’s back with a pagne. Even a newborn is easily carried this way- or at least, the ladies here make it look easy. It takes years of practise to do it really well and girls here start practising early on. You often see toddlers walking around with a corn cob or stick tied onto their back as a makeshift doll. They grow up to be quite skilful, able to do all kinds of tasks with a baby on board.

The child is balanced on the mom’s back and then the pagne is tied or tucked in at the top and bottom corners . From the front, all you see is the pagne covering the mom’s front and a little foot sticking out over each of her hips.
I can attest that it’s quite comfortable for the mom and the children get used to it pretty quickly.
Babies get their arms tucked inside the cloth, so it works like swaddling and , indeed, they do seem to find it soothing. Toddlers get tied on with their arms out. Watch out for hair-pulling, is my advice on that.

“Pagne” is a French word that is used in West Africa to refer to a rectangle of cotton cloth measuring approximately 45 inches wide and 67 inches long (about 1 metre by 2 metres).
About 150 years ago, Dutch traders were looking to do business with the people of the Gold Coast (now called Ghana) for reasons apparent in the name. At first, they tried trading cheap printed fabrics from Indonesia, but these were rejected by the Africans as too flimsy and unattractive. So, the Dutch developed a cloth adapted specifically to the tastes of West African market - the Wax Pagne was born! It was a heavier grade of cotton and printed with bold, colourful designs. It caught on and quickly became a traditional favourite throughout the sub-continent.beth Jakob burkinamom    

►CrackerlandiaThe adventures of  Miss Carnivorous wonderlegs in Crackerlandia.

Ho'k Mimi. No sense of humor. You must be one of those lardassed neocons who needs some serious tubesteak

►Oakland  Miss Carnivorous the adult literacy program
On Friday during a pot luck at work we were talking about the inpending budget cuts. It was mentioned that the adult literacy program might be scrapped.
Good, I cheered. It is bullshit. Very few people go there to actually learn to read. Mostly the guys come to stare at the teacher's breasts. I was a literacy tutor and can speak from experience.

► Crackerlandia   Miss Carnivorous ETCHUMM !!  ADJUST YOUR TITS
Strudel: Ah ah, big news. Becoming famous. Wanna see?

Gail Fortescue: Show the rubbish

Miss Carivorous: Italian commenter, Strudel, has been
feeling a little cranky lately. Could this be the reason?

Banned: Italian men can no longer touch their groins in public.

Italy's highest appeals court has ruled that it is a criminal offence for
men to touch their groins in public.

Strudel: Shocked ? fainted ?

Gail Fortescue: Reading about touching attribute. I always told u that the
Iti's do it all the time.

Always checking to see that it hasn't dropped off

Strudel: Everybody in the world did,  check Greece and Rome

Gail Fortescue: U see more in italy..difficult to see in Britain

Strudel: Wimmen used to scratch tits .yep , true. to prevent bad luck from
crossing black cats and Brits

Gail Fortescuertescue: Black cats r lucky in Great Britain

Strudel: Of course. Anyway that scratching isn't on in Italy.

Gail Fortescue: 8 in 10 men pull willies here. (Here = In Sicily)

Strudel: Maybe shoolboys still do some scratching, but it's vanishing

Gail Fortescue: Not scratching but adjusting

Gail Fortescue: I got flu goin feel sick bye

Strudel: Scratch your tits against flu

 Miss Carnivorous said: Hee hee hee, we are laughing real hard here at work.
Co-worker says "adjust tits against flu!"
 

►African Tales

Dear President Yar'Adua,

Ranka dede sir. Saanu da aiki sir. I hope this letter finds you well. If so, doxology. I am constrained to write urgently to intimate you with the frustrating conditions I've had to contend with since I assumed duties as Nigeria 's Ambassador to the Republic of South Africa .

 kokorioko OLD MAN ZUBAH SAYS :
If you see a mouse laughing at the cat, there is a hole somewhere .

 ►African Tales...remember when you were very young and I left you sleeping alone in the house and went to the market...? ” My mum smiles into my eyes.
“Mami, I can never forget, that day... but I will never believe that it is the wind that blew away the iron sheet from our roof. Baba Njenga stole it...”

►African Tales.There were many people who didn’t like my dad. Chief on the list, probably with good reasons, was my mom. Then, there were her family.

►Fire drill

She said: “Listen, don’t tell anyone, but there is going to be a surprise fire drill at 11 O’clock tomorrow.”

    Josefina Ekaterinenburg  

                   Anadyr

“Anadyr?” she said and put the keychain into her backpack. In that movement I caught a unexpected glimpse of her hands. They were blue and white, skinny and dry. Not that skinny and dry was a rare combination in those days, neither was blue and white. Everyone was blue veins on white skin in those days, growing thinner and more watery with every day. Yet I had not expected her hands to look like the hands of others. I had thought her to be above the common sufferings of common mortals. “What are you doing here?”

► Russian Stories  

do you speak Italian ? 

Sapodilla

►Sex and Dubai When not out shopping, socializing or getting stylish in the city’s salons, many women turn to the hidden, forbidden, but still pleasurable pastime of carpet munching.

►Short Stories At the end of the recording, Brother H made no move to turn off the recorder. In fact, he made no move at all.

►Guyana gyal

Guyana-Gyal

    “Yes! What is wrong with you? Why you can’t believe that aliens want to contact earth, eh? Why not Guyana?”
 

►Soviet poster

Work is the curse of the drinking classes

►Vintage Gallery

Why did do you it to me baby?

Rich Arabs

Send your Dream and, insh'Allah, your dream will become a reality.

"Dear Rich Arab, Please hurry, my school grades are bad. If they don't improve I will fail my school year. I can not seem to function and do my homework as my myspace is too busy and I have too many virtual friends. They literally virtually deprive me of real sleep and my Second Life avatar has formed relations with another avatar who is cheating on my myspace persona. I feel jealous and don't know if I can cope. Can you send me money to employ a Bangladeshi to blog for me?"

do you speak Italian ? 

Sapodilla

►Turkmenistan The thing that ate them scared their kids very much. The little girl couldn’t talk after that.

►Crackerlandia

My Grandma once said to me, "You're nasty, you're nasty all the time".

Weedee peepo.
U dee man.
U asleepo?
Wee u scam

Miss Carnivorous versus the sqatters

Back to the 19th century
On Thursday, Feb. 14, police descended on the Kennedy Road Settlement in Durban and began ripping out electrical hookups. They ripped out pirated service, and they ripped out legal service. They dug up wires that had been run underground.
 

Every day is a holiday for the homeless! Yesterday on the local news they continued an investigation into the homeless encampments in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. They interviewed a charming drunk, who said "I could get a room in the city but I just love it here."
 

►Baghdad by taxi

ZAPPY CORLEONE

A Close Shave

Yesterday Morning.

Ahmed hails a taxi from Al-Shaab District asks the driver to take him to Karrada, Ahmed agrees to the Price the drive asked and pops in.

Just after crossing the ING checkpoints on the Al-Shaab bridge and instead of taking the left exit towards the Army Canal road towards central Baghdad he continues towards the Sleigh.
Ahmed notices and hits the driver on his adam's apple so hard the Taxi driver gets disoriented and slams the brakes, he tries to pull out his gun but Ahmed has managed to throw himself out the car and runs towards the ING checkpoint.

The End.

True... God and his instincts saved him.

it’s so Gucci!!!

►Crocodiles

►Istanbul

Carpetblogger&roy

November 26, 2007
            Turknology

There are a couple useful words some friends and I coined while living in Turkey. Turknology allowed one to jack a broken truck up on wooden blocks, then build a small fire under it so one could see what was broken on the undercarriage. It also allowed you to to plug the telephone wires that come out of the wall into 220v. Then all you have to do go to the ground floor and run a screwdriver over the telephone block until you get big sparks. This is how you identify the correct wires!

I laugh because last week, I finally got the refrigerator fixed. Seriously, it was so hard for me to get the master out I was envisioning life without a refrigerator and thinking it wouldn't be all that bad.

My less-than-year old refrigerator's motor broke. Yes, I know it should have been under warranty. No, I had no clue how to administer the warranty service process.

"JUST FIX IT! I WILL PAY." I could say that.

Two masters arrived with their equipment. Removing and repairing the motor required welding. In my wood kitchen. The kitchen was filled with freon gas and the smell of welding. What could possibly go wrong?

The smoke alarm screeched. The masters looked at me and asked "what's that?"

Also, the master came to fix the leaking skylight/roof. It, too, requiring welding.

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
The Turkish Bath 1862