I Can Smell For Africa.

I went for an event two weeks ago. I sat at a comfortable spot where I could feel the air conditioner but not directly under it. I wanted to be in a comfortable position where I knew I would enjoy myself and pay close attention to all that was going on. Few minutes after I had settled down, a young man who was well dressed walked in. I admired his attire from afar, maybe because blue is my best colour as he was wearing a shade of blue. The Atiku material(type of guinea brocade) was starched which brought out its beauty.

The young man came towards my seat and sat beside me. At first, it wasn't noticeable but it later became very obvious. I couldn't believe it, basically because it was still early in the morning for that kind of stuff to be sifting through the air from him and the morning was also a cool one. I also think that I was too prejudiced to think such could be coming from such a fine and well dressed young man.

I asked myself, "is that an odor?" I kept on ruminating in my mind how this could be. The odor was a bit above a slight one but was noticeable and unpleasant. The thing is that I can smell for Africa, meaning that the olfactory sensory neurons in my nose are oversensitive to the smell sensation. That also means that it was like I was in a torture chamber but I think I bore the pain gallantly because what I was going through never showed on my face or nose.

And this has got nothing to do with his using or not using an antiperspirant or deodorant, as I caught a whiff of it. I was still thinking hard about the source of the odour when it struck my mind, "UNDERWEAR!". This is not that kind that oozes from the body but this one is from the underwear.

Underwears are garments worn under the outer clothes and are normally in direct contact with the skin. According to Wikipedia, they serve to keep outer garments from being soiled or damaged by bodily excretions, to lessen the friction of outerwear against the skin, to shape the body, and to provide concealment or support for parts of it. There are some underwears that are worn In cold weather, to provide additional warmth.

In the tropics, we sweat a lot and the underwear helps to absorb sweat especially when the sun is high. Every gentleman should wear a sleeveless vest with a low cut neck under their garments. The sleeveless vest which we call singlet in this part of the world is preferable to to a full vest because of our hot weather. The sleeveless and low cut neck type allows for circulation of air under the garment.

Now, back to the young man sitting beside me at the event I attended. So what's the problem? What I suspected was that he had worn the same singlet for more than a day or two and the singlet must have absorbed enough sweat to make it cry out for a change.

Adult humans perspire between 10 to 14 liters of sweat per day. The fluid that comes out as sweat always mixes with bacteria that we all have on our skin. These bacteria which are sometimes good for the skin mixes with the perspiration fluid. It is the bacteria in the fluid that causes the odour. Now imagine the singlet absorbing all these microorganisms with that much fluid and you now put on the same singlet the next day.

That's why my nose was suffering at the event and it really suffered. The musty smell was horrible. It is hygienically ideal to put on a singlet for only a day and wash it thereafter. It's not good to carry dead microorganisms about, it's like going about with a dead rotten animal on the back.

Brothers please, let's be compassionate to our fellow human beings by not constituting a nuisance to them, especially those who can smell for Africa.