Episode 2

Ndiwe Okongola Kwambiri

Beauty is fleeting in the West. On my way around the village, I saw a little boy sitting on his mother's lap as she tried to cut his hair, and it was so touching the way they interacted with one another. She was already a very pretty woman, but the way she was with her son made her appear so much more beautiful to me. I saw beauty in the way a woman smiled as she sang a song of welcome with 20 other ladies. It's what we would call a Kodak moment. When I told these two ladies that they were beautiful, they laughed and got all embarrassed. They were beautiful on the outside, for sure, but it was the way their character revealed itself that made them so beautiful to me. When I think of beauty in the West and how we have come to perceive it (America's Next Top Model is a perfect example of just how ridiculous it is becoming), it is just so laughable. If is so meaningless to God, why do we make it so important in our lives? We continuously strive for this fakeness, when the ones who are the most beautiful are the ones who emanate it from their hearts. That's real beauty.

*the phrase above means You are very beautiful