this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2023
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I grew up in West Africa in the 80, and there was a lot assaulting your nostrils. The markets with dried fish, the open sewage trenches in the city, rotting roadkill.
But the very worst experience was when I was trying to cross over a bridge during some festival. The bridge was packed with people, who were either heavily perfumed to mask the BO, whose deodorant gave up or who just went a few days without bathing. So we were all there together profusely sweating in the tropical sun, and I was just tall enough so my nose was at armpit height.
Or no, a buried memory surfaces. You may know that natural latex drips out rubber trees, and that they spritz ammonia into the latex to keep it liquid? Now imagine a plantation the size of a city where everything stinks of ammonia. And then a factory that smells of burnt piss?