Word: pageanteers
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...easy being a beauty queen. Neo Chitombo, 29, has spent the day before her second-ever pageant honing a dance routine with other contestants, talking to pesky reporters, trying on her evening dress and shoes, and worrying about what jewelry will best accessorize the outfit. And now, just over 24 hours before she is to appear on stage, she and her fellow contestants learn that the promised rehearsal room is not available. Worse still, the pageant organizer admits that the official hair stylist may not be able to fit everyone in. Chitombo rolls her eyes and makes a snap decision...
...Miss hiv Stigma Free pageant, held last weekend in the Botswanan capital, Gaborone, is a beauty show with a difference. All 12 competitors are infected - and determined to prove that living with HIV doesn't slow them down or make them any different. "We are all human beings," says show founder and organizer Kesego Basha-Mupeli, herself hiv positive. "What we want to prove is that we are exactly the same as everyone else. We can live productive, positive and happy lives. Here we are. Accept...
...there's still a long way to go. The stigma of aids remains almost as prevalent as the disease, hampering efforts to contain its spread and adding to the burden of those infected. The contestants in the pageant all work with welfare groups: helping those who have contracted HIV; educating those who have not. Says contestant Malebogo Mongwaketse, 26: "People still have that fear. We're trying to show that knowing your status is a good thing...
...Assisi to recapture this humble ideal. Put off by the jewel-encrusted and gilt-covered re-creations in the noble courts of his time, he borrowed some real farm animals and real straw and convened his midnight Mass on Christmas Eve of 1223 around a back-to-basics pageant that, as he wrote, showed "how He suffered the lack for all those things needed by an infant...
...during the Christmas pageant rehearsal on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, she was not concerned with any of that. Instead, she was unpacking a shimmering, silver gown with two large cardboard wings trimmed with gold stars that she will Velcro to her shoulders a couple of weeks from now. A floral wreath, spray-painted gold, will bedeck her head. All eyes will be upon her. But the costume will not be the draw. In the Arlington Heights pageant, she will play the angel who carries the baby Jesus to the manger at the front of the sanctuary...