Ice cream and bikinis!

Summer is finally here, it is imperative that you are well equipped - not for the right cooling air conditioner as that is luxury. It is imperative you have the right summer wear and the right swim wear.

So what is for summer? First and foremost, it’s time to select the best bikini look for you, as there are plenty bikini parties to attend this time of the year. All the celebrities, models, beauty queens and your average Marias, are all now flaunting their pictures on social media dressed only in Bikinis. On the other hand, if you are an ice cream ‘freak’ like me, this is the season you have to disinter extra reasons for consuming more litres of Ice cream.

Is there anyone who doesn't love Ice cream?

On Lusaka’s Cairo road is a new Ice cream milieu named Gigibonta – Italian Ice cream. The place is located just opposite Stanbic bank Lusaka main branch, precisely sandwiched between Subway and Phil photo. If you are looking for great tasty Ice cream, this is the place to take your family on a hot afternoon. However, if you are a family or group of friends, which is above the count of five then make sure you are carrying your visa card. The ice cream here is premium priced, and deservedly so the taste is worth every bit spent. Last weekend, I indulged on a dip of Spagnola and Stracciatella.

Talking of Stracciatella (complete with chocolate pieces), it is also one of the ice-creams that Parmalat Zambia has launched as Royalty Brand Ice-cream. The other flavours of the brand are Tin Roof (complete with tree nuts) and Vanilla plain.  The royalty Brand Ice-cream is a premium product yet still fetching a good price. A 2L at K28, and it’s really a great bargain!

Cairo road though, is never complete in terms of Ice cream without the mention of Creamland. Creamland is a place full of Ice-cream, Ice-lollies and even splash drinks all of which are great for this hot weather. Cream land has been able to command a sizeable Ice cream market size because they have done the right things all the time – responded to customer needs and wants. The only thing they have done wrong is that they have not been able to expand beyond their small locale, off Cairo road and opposite the main post office. I asked the proprietor once why they are not present at any of the malls around Lusaka as that would boost their market and grow the business. He assured me there was something to that effect in the pipeline. I am still waiting.

Ice-cream outings in Lusaka can never be complete without the mention of Milky lane and Wimpy. On a number of occasions, my wife and I after a hard day’s work have driven straight to Manda hill to enjoy the milky lane Ice-cream. Many a time we have bought the carnival dipped corn ice-cream (especially chocolate dip) and then enjoyed the evening eating the Ice cream from the car park. We always laugh at ourselves, at times saying we look like teens when we do this but it’s a good way to beat the weather by enjoying ice-cream. Wimpy is probably more spread out and offers a choice of more affordable corns and all.

But a day out for ice cream rarely raises any eyebrows (grown eyebrows not painted eyebrows). Bikini parties are what have raised my eyebrows recently. I do not remember seeing or hearing an advert on TV and radio respectively for a bikini party in Zambia until last year. There could have been a few places where the sight of women in bikini was ultimately inevitable, like the beach in Siavonga, the Victoria Falls and at a lot of swimming pools at most lodges dotted around. As for a bikini party being so big that adverts are running on the radio for more than two weeks, it is a new phenomenon to me.

Zambian teens enjoying bikini moments

Bikini parties are common in other places especially those countries that have the ocean or sea and enjoy nature splashing water waves on their shores. In the USA, even in the 1920’s it was illegal to show skin above the knees hence women in swimsuits were constantly arrested. Times have changed, and celebrities have helped push for the ‘dress less’ agenda and everything is normal today. Halle Berry as a Bond girl ‘rocked’ an orange bikini in 2002's 20^th 007 Bond movie, "Die Another Day" and that remains to many socialites as one of the best bikini moments in movie history. Music videos now almost have a discernible rule for shooting in bikini.

Is sporting a bikini at a public event that foreign in Zambia and Africa?  Maybe, but dress less isn’t. What of the Reed Dance Ceremony in Swaziland isn’t that not an African tradition well preserved? If it is, then dressing less is not alien to Africa. What of the elderly women who dance at the Nc’wala ceremony topless? Maybe the younger females in Chipata won’t bare all at the Nc’wala but will be comfortable enough in a bikini. Maybe the bloke who called a radio station registering his disgust at moral decadency in Zambia evident in the manner of dress was right? But he had no right to ask government to put up a dress code for all citizens and enshrine that in the constitution.

Why then should anyone choose what I’ll wear for any event? I know there is a law on indecent exposure and that is adequate. Until such a time when we revert back to medieval time laws the dress code at the bikini party will still be BIKINI.

Enjoy the ice cream this summer… and look out for those bikini parties. I end.