When I was 20, there was one place I always wanted to go to:
Europe. As you may recall, this unhealthy obsession with the continent resulted
in many episodes, a particularly traumatizing one of which resulted in a
maniacal bubble bath incident. Now that I am older (no comments on the wiser),
my tastes have become less geographically dependent. In other words, if I have
to see another European church, I will throw up. Then perhaps I will
take a bubble bath.
These days, my only criteria in traveling are to see
something I haven’t seen before, or see friends and eat junk food. So when I finally knew for sure a move
to South Africa would not be happening for work, I decided to use 9 days of the
inevitable downtime brought on by a lackluster New York international
development community summer to go to a new country. That box must be ticked
every year; it’s imperative.
Even though my understanding of the world has dramatically
changed over the years, my decision making process for most things still consists
of the same three steps:
1. Choose
something random
2. Justify
said random thing in my head through mind tricks and self-conditioning
3. Bombard
friends, family, or unsuspecting interns with unanswerable questions to
reinforce my justification of said random thing.
After spending an hour zooming in and out of the world on Google
Earth, I finally landed on a small country I’d once heard has a ton of my
brethren – Trinidad. A little scared off by the prospect of once again assuming
my position as the awkward Indian, I decided that the cost to get there trumped
all other factors. After all, the plane ticket price difference between
Trinidad and EUROPE could buy at least 10 hours of therapy. I figured that
should be enough to work through any identity crises.
In the midst of my mind tricks and self-conditioning to
justify my decision, I took the occasion to demonstrate to the world the degree
of my nerdiness by looking up the following:
·
Weather data to see if rainfall patterns will
make it an enjoyable experience during the specific period I am there
·
The GINI coefficient, GDP per capita,
infrastructure, and transparency indexes
·
The 3G and WIFI coverage across the country
Satisfied with the information I found, I then moved to step
three of my decision making process in the form of interrogating our office
interns. Like most people in America, they both knew of people who were from,
had been to, or had heard of Trinidad. Based on the combined twelve seconds of
conversation this country had taken in their lives, I asked a series of
questions pertaining to specific cultural phenomenon, the transitioning
economic status, and the logistics of getting around the country. Though their
answers mostly consisted of blank stares and a few hints that end of my tenure
in the office could not come soon enough, I felt I successfully fulfilled step
three, and booked a ticket.
For those of you international
development/affairs/anthropology people reading this post, I know you can
relate to the very complicated and delicate process of packing for a trip like
this. Though I was going on a vacation, assembling my outfits required a
semi-sacred ceremony that comes with fieldwork: the Ceremony of Clothes
Separation.
The Ceremony of Clothes Separation is especially important
for the female sex, and involves the painstaking process of organizing clothes
by both appropriateness and crappiness. Ceremonies generally result in four
categories of clothes, as follows:
- Category
1, Bumf**k Developing Country: These are clothes that have once doubled
as rags, your dog’s chew toy, or clothes you wore while painting your
apartment. The ONLY appropriate location to wear clothes that fall into
Category 1 is in bumf**k Africa, Asia, South America or the like. No matter
what dirt surface you must use as a bed, no matter what insect, animal, or
child attacks you, no matter how blazing hot the sun may be, no matter how much
you sweat, poop, or urinate yourself, it does not matter; there are no
standards to be met in Category 1 clothes.
- Category
2, Big City Developing Country: One solid step above Category 1,
Category 2 clothes are appropriate to be seen in big African, Asian, South
American, or the like cities, but are still meant to be sweated through in
poorly ventilated markets, public health facilities, or government offices.
These clothes provide moderate comfort while ensuring those around you that you
are neither a prostitute nor trying to be blatantly disrespectful of the
prevailing culture or religion.
- Category
3, Middle America: These are clothes appropriate in the company of
middle, suburban Americans (and Canadians), and are generally found in Kohl’s,
American Eagle, or other blah stores.
- Category
4, Normal Life: Normal life clothes are those you wear in your
day-to-day existence at home in New York, San Francisco, Europe, Dubai, Tokyo,
Montreal, or the like. One or two Category 4 outfits must be included in your
suitcase regardless of the final developing country destination, as completely
leaving these outfits out will inevitably be met with your long lost friend
inviting you to dinner during your layover in Paris, forcing you to roam the
streets in smelly, sweat-stained Category 1 or 2 clothes, and resulting in
immediate entry denial at the door of your favorite restaurant. No crêpes for
you, Mademoiselle, no crêpes for you.
Being a woman traveling alone, assembling the clothes I
would take could make or break my experience in Trinidad, for how to not draw
attention to myself while also not passing out from heatstroke while also being
allowed in public places in proper cities is a delicate balance. Somehow, some
way, after all of my trips to Africa and Asia, I made a cardinal mistake – nearly
all of the clothes I packed fell in Category 2. After all, there would be no
major European or Middle Eastern city layovers on this trip. Made sense to me.
Unfortunately it did not make sense to Trinidad.
From my nerd research, I knew Trinidad is solidly a middle
income/medium economically developed country. What I forgot is that countries
that fall in this area of the economic development spectrum often take on a
strange phenomenon – a lot of people in major cities have enough money to buy
nice things, including nice clothes, nice shoes, good jewelry, etc. BUT, the
idea that economically developed countries have of appropriateness still has
not taken root.
Put another way, people are always overdressed. Go to a
casual dinner, and the majority of the people in the restaurant look like they’re
about to go to prom. Go to an informal meeting at a temple or church, and
everyone has on a suit. Sure, many people, especially those who have lived
abroad in Europe, Canada or the States understand the importance of jeans and
shoes that don’t kill your feet, but the majority of the wealthy people on any
given outing in a major city in a middle income country will be wearing
something I would consider appropriate for a wedding.
Then there was me. In Category 2 clothes. Sweating. A lot.
Don’t get me wrong; the people I met in Trinidad were by and large very kind,
though they all asked me the same question: “Why are you dressed like a
homeless person?”
And compared to everyone else in the country, it was a valid
question. Some examples:
Location One:
Zip-lining
What I am wearing: Shorts,
stained t-shirt, 3-year old tennis shoes
What they are
wearing: Tightly fitted jeans, halter-top, new Pumas, jewelry
Location Two: Hiking
in the middle of the mountains
What I am wearing: Same
shorts, a different stained t-shirt, 3-year old tennis shoes
What they are
wearing: $100 tights, $100 sport shorts, new Pumas, $100 basketball jersey.
And a similar outfit to change into after hiking
Location Three: Temple
in the Sea
What I am wearing: Linen
pants, t-shirt (no stain), Converse shoes with holes in them, $20 kameez I
bought in Queens to take one picture before ripping it off out of fear of
passing out
What they are
wearing: Tightly fitted jeans, tightly fitted kameez out of every Bollywood
movie ever, 4-inch stilettos, ton of jewelry, full make-up, incredulous look at
what I have on
As evidenced by the Ceremony of Clothes Separation, one of
the most stressful parts about traveling abroad for work is trying to look at
all professional after pulling your shoulders out of that terrible 12-hour
coach flight seat AND trying to feel safe AND not trying to ruin your clothes
at the same time. Hopefully you can thus understand why completely
misjudging where Trinidad sits on the Ceremony of Clothes Separation, drawing
attention to myself for no other reason than looking like a hobo, and not having to care about my
appearances was AWESOME.
Normally I have a heightened paranoia about someone stealing
my stuff. In Trinidad, I that paranoia was not to be seen. When I found out I’d
need to pay the guesthouse in cash, I marched straight up to the closest ATM,
withdrew 2600 Trinidadian dollars (about US $420), stuck the cash in my linen
pants pocket and slowly sauntered back. Usually withdrawing that kind of cash
would result in at least four plastic bags, 5 rubber bands, three pockets, a
lock, a bat, and the fastest non-suspicious walk possible. In Trinidad, I accidentally dropped the giant wad of cash on the ground and barely blinked in response.
Normally when I buy any expensive article of clothing, I
take hours to get on and off the subway in New York. The painstaking process of
making sure no one scuffs my new shoes on my commute home is exhausting. In Trinidad,
I didn’t care what the hell I stepped in, who the hell stepped on me, the
amount of rain that soaked my clothes, or what stains I amassed running around
the island. It made for much more efficient travel, I must say.
All in all, I had a great time in Trinidad, because I could
give a crap about how I looked. Of course within 2 hours of returning home, I
was back to doing my expensive shoes, new glasses, "Do you like my pants?" dance, but
I will always relish admiring those beautiful Trinidadian landmarks while
looking like a slob. If you ever get the chance to go to a random country and
not care about appearances, I highly recommend taking full advantage. Just make
sure there are no Normal Life layovers in the process. Crêpes are important.
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