Dear Log,
Dr. Mantombazana "Manto" Edmie Tshabalala-Msimang is the South African health minister.
And she thinks that the way to treat AIDS is not wicked Western medicine with its hocus-pocus talk of "antiretrovirals" and such, but instead to use the sound African remedies of garlic, lemon, beetroot and olive oil. After all, if those are ingredients to a zesty summer salad, why not also use them to combat a disease that is depopulating a whole continent??? It's just common sense.
But her name, her name is so melodious! Mantombazana! Manto! Tshabalala-Msimang!
As I was puttering around the kitchen the other night pondering the very Africanness of her name's sound (African languages seem to have such an affinity for repeated vowels), it occurred to me that her name takes wonderfully to the tune of the gibbering-idiot minstrel tune "Camptown Races".
And so, to commemorate Dr Tshabalala-Msimang's brilliance, here her name turned into lyrics to "Camptown Races".
Tshabalala-Msimang,
Manto, Manto,
Doctor Mantombazana,
Several million dead!Chorus:
TshabalaLA!
MANtombazaNA!
Tshabalala-Msimang,
Several million dead![Repeat until everyone is dead from AIDS.]
