"They're called apetitos but they enlarge one's butt," texts Tadiwa. I've just read about Zimbabwe's latest craze -- bottom-building pills -- and sms'ed her worriedly.
The pills are called Super Apetito, Power Apetito and General Apetito. They're smuggled in from Angola and Mozambique and -- according to Kwayedza, the Shona-language daily -- they're selling like hot cakes. Zimbabwe is, after all, a country where a recent survey concluded "men are looking for women with huge behinds." (You can count me out then, and probably Tadiwa, since she fits into my cast-off Paris trousers)
At around 60 pence a packet, the pills are eminently affordable, even for working girls struggling to get by on Zimbabwe's standard monthly salary of less than £120.
But there are side-effects: sleeplessness, strange gait (one woman said her client was now "walking like a crab") and goodness-knows-what-else in the future. Local doctors are urging women to stop buying them but it's an uphill struggle: the standard wolfwhistle here translates to (and I've got this on state media authority): "This woman is very attractive, she wiggles."
"Don't use those pills, girl," I text Tadiwa. "You've got a beautiful figure."
She doesn't reply.
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