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In the Bay Area we have the good luck of having a lesser obesity problem than other areas of the country, but we are not free from it. Up to now I am unaccustomed to seeing overweight people. I don’t mean “chubby”, I mean people who are truly obese. Obese people awaken an infantile curiosity in me. I have to use all the good manners I’ve been taught so as not to stare at them like an imbecile. And indiscrete questions come to my mind. How do they go to the bathroom? How is their sex life? How do they tie their shoes? If they drop money in the street, above what amount will they bother to exert effort to pick it up? How many bottles of sunscreen do they need for a day at the beach? Have they ever washed their belly button? Many of these questions became practical when putting on a stage play in which one of the characters was the “Fat Man”. I am sure that the dramatist, Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936), did not imagine an actor actually fat enough to play the role.
Our fat actor was always the first one to arrive so that he could park close to the entrance and, sometimes, so that we would not see him in the embarrassing work of walking up the small steps to the beautiful building designed by architect Julia Morgan on Durant Avenue, in Berkeley. Jonathan (the director) and I had heartache from hearing the crunching of the seats where our dear actor sat, since he was prohibited from sitting in the oldest ones. Sometimes, in the middle of rehearsal our actor began to sweat. We interrupted rehearsal, afraid for his health and selfishly for the production. But, never did we think of finding a replacement. He was the most dedicated of all the actors. One of the toughest jobs was to find a bench that was sufficiently solid for our actor. We ended up paying a carpenter to construct a special one, concluding after my Internet search that the sad reality was we could not pay the exorbitant prices for furniture made for obese people. In the beginning, certain movements were foreseen for the stage. The “Fat Man’s” monologues are very long and there had to be flexibility within the scenes. But little by little we eliminated them because it was very embarrassing to move from one side to the other using little steps. In the end, there were only two movements, one in which he stood up from the bench to look from afar, as the scene dictated, and the other in which he walked towards death. The difficulty was to manage unnatural movements, naturally. Thousands of details came up. For example, sufficient time had to be preplanned for the lights to go down so that he could leave the stage in a dignified manner. The play was a hit and our obese actor was deservedly acclaimed. I don’t know what will become of him, but he said that he would undergo a gastric bypass and was motivated to continue acting. Oh how I would love to see him in a movie one day! And in all this I have encountered answers to many of my concerns about how obese people resolve their daily problems. Industry has been fattened as well by this specific market: toilets that can support tons, showers and special accessories, giant umbrellas, extensions for safety belts, watches with larger bracelets, steel reinforced beds and even the odd apparatus – of all kinds – like the very useful one to help you put on your socks. If clothing is very big and weighs more, it requires hangers up to the job and, of course, appropriate furniture. Everyone wants to have their cake and eat it too: interior decorators make the case that stronger furniture comes with prominent decorative objects; homebuilders market houses with more ample halls and entrances and have even begun opening vacations spots especially adapted for the obese. For example this one in the Cancun area: http://www.cancuncd.com/cancun-freedom-hotels.php Some cities in the United States have begun offering ambulances with mechanical gurneys without which the paramedics could not transport some of those in need of attention. Will they themselves become obese? What makes me sad are the children that are born addicted to sugar, and clearly, strollers and car seats strong enough for obese babies are needed and ever bigger diapers. But this is nothing to be worried about because for everything there is the ideal product to address the problem. And with this, industry takes the fat prize. About the Author Hokulani Valencia was born on the Island of Maui, on the 29th of June, 1971. Moved to Peru at the age of three. Hokulani studied at the Faculty of Economics and Planning at the National Agrarian University of Molina. Graduated with a degree in political, legal and economic analysis from Mills College, Oakland California in 1999. Currently working in Oakland, California in industrial relations, defending the right of workers to participate, or not, in union activities without being discriminated against. Hokulani writes short stories, novels, scripts for theater and movies, and poetry, but is, as of yet, unpublished. She has worked in theatrical and artistic productions in the San Francisco Bay Area, including activities related to the Mission Cultural Center for the Latino Arts in the Mission district of the City of San Francisco. Copyright © 2008 Diaday.com All rights reserved
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