Miss ELWA?

Every night for the last three weeks the nightclub next door has been hosting the qualifiers for the Miss ELWA competition. As I understand it if one wins the qualifier they then represent the community in th county competition. If you win county you go for Miss Liberia. These are not beauty pagents in the way the we understand them. There are no different parts to the competition like evening wear or talent. The girls basically dress up in the hoochiest gear they can muster and then walk up and down the stage like a bad runway model. They also get to state their name and the "platform" they are running on. Usually peace or development. Not really a stretch of the imagination. You or I would derive maybe ten to twenty minutes of entertainment from this but for the Liberians it is captivating. Unlike other beauty competitions there is a lot of audience participation. Audience members get drunk and throw money at the girls as they walk. The deliniation between a pagent and a strip club begins to become even more skewed at this point. You also have to pay to get in. This is beyond my comprehension. As someone who rarely pays to get into a bar or nightclub, its my right to drink if I want, I find it unbelievable that people will pay for this. Liberia is a country with 80 percent unemployment. It is beyond me where people are getting money for a cover charge, for throwing at girls, and for Heineken. (Club Beer is for poor people more on this another time) Its not just one night of this insanity, its six nights a week. How much more walking can these girls do? Another key element we have discovered is the introduction song. Its a mildly anoying Brirish pop song played for thirty seconds or so as the girls do their first walk and then introduce themselves and their platform. The begining of the song is played over and over for as each contestant takes their shot. Oh the humanity. I decided to reanact a typical walk employed by Liberian beauty pagent contestents. Enjoy the video and avoid the pageants!