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Where Beauty Reigns
by Lindsey Arent
   

Excerpts:

     November is an especially important month for a majority of Colombians. It is in November that the country crowns its supreme reina de belleza - Miss Colombia. In most countries, the national beauty pageant is an event that occurs over the course of a single televised evening, after which the tearful winner gracefully retreats into the folds of magazines and talk shows. In Colombia, the pageant is a national spectacle that endures for nearly three weeks. The winner is guaranteed more fame, endorsements and adoration than national athletes and rock stars. In both Colombia and neighboring Venezuela, women are bred and raised for the crowning glory of being called Miss Something; Colombia alone boasts more than 400 beauty pageants per year. And both countries are renown for the steady stream of local pageant winners who go on to win Miss Universe and Miss World.

     In January, 1996, two months after Venezuelan Alicia Machado won the Miss Universe crown – flatly beating Miss Colombia – I graduated college, sold my sofa and took a job teaching English in Medellín, Colombia’s second-largest city.  Newspaper and television reporters were still lamenting Miss Colombia’s loss. Perhaps she’d been too nervous, too jetlagged, too unpracticed, they speculated.

     Soon after I arrived, I answered an ad in a local paper from a woman looking for roommates. I thought I was incredibly lucky to have found an apartment with a woman who lived on her own and didn’t care what I did with my time. In Medellín it is customary for adults to live at home with their parents until they marry.

     I quickly settled into life with Angela María, a Colombiana who didn’t work, but instead devoted her days to the maintenance of her body and her many boyfriends. At first, it was a perfect living situation. I practiced my Spanish with Angela, and gave her free English lessons when I could. And she had a new friend and a willing pupil when it came to learning the ropes of Colombian life . . .

. . .

. . . Angela was quick to explain the social mores of Medellín. We take beauty and appearance seriously here, she said. Women are supposed to be bien puestas, bien preparadas – well put-together, always ready to be seen, at home or in public – which means tight, attractive, colorful clothing that shows off the shape of the body, and high heels or boots. Makeup is a necessity; a woman should always look pretty, feminine. Her hair should be well-styled and in place, never stringy or mussed. The young women in Medellín favor skintight blue jeans and I would often hear Angela groaning as she strained to pull hers over her body . . .

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