August 30, 2005
Topless virgins vie for king in AIDS-hit Swaziland
This is wild! and well, only remotely related to cell phones. [From The Agonist via Teyebeam reblog]
More than 50,000 bare-breasted virgins vied to become the King of Swaziland's 13th wife on Monday in a ceremony which critics say ill befits a country with the world's highest HIV/AIDS rate.
King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarch, arrived dressed in a leopard-skin loincloth to watch the Reed Dance ceremony, which he has used since 1999 to pluck new brides from the girls dressed in little more than beaded mini-skirts.
... the girls danced around the royal stadium in the hope of catching the eye of the 37-year-old monarch. "I want to live a nice life, have money, be rich, have a BMW and cellphone," said one dancer, 16-year-old Zodwa Mamba, who wore a traditional brightly colored tasseled scarf."
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