Since my blog and my life regularly take up sensitive or "taboo" topics of sex, politics, poverty and international aid among other things, I thought it would be interesting to add a few more to the mix that have weighed heavily on my mind throughout my journey: race and culture. As a Sociology and Women's Studies major in college, I'm trained to think in broad general trends of how individuals and groups of people relate to one another within multiple types of social categories. I think I'm also naturally intuitive, introspective and curious about people, so on every long drive I've made in NZ, OZ, Thailand or Ethiopia, I find myself forgetting who I am, and lost in an imaginative world of what would it be like to walk in X person on the side of the road's shoes for a day. This tendency has been the most extreme in Ethiopia, where I constantly find myself in utter awe, astonishment and perplexity at the lives of the thousands of people I pass.
Basically, I've never felt so much as "the other" in my whole life, both culturally and racially. I've had tons of really interesting moments-- where I forget that I'm white, where I want to be darker to fit in, but mostly where I'm supremely grateful to have been born into my circumstances, like "thank God that I'm not that barefoot woman on the side of the road carrying 50 pounds of sticks on my back right now." Then of course it's "How can I utilize my own social standing and privilege to try and make life better for her?" I want to write a little about these reflections, to show what I think I've learned about myself, race and culture, and maybe someone reading this will reflect upon themselves and learn something too.
Before getting into it, I want to make two disclaimers about these "uber honest" reflections. #1 is that I acknowledge by unique perspective as a privileged white girl from Orange County (the OC). I was raised in upper-middle-class standards, with a loving family where I never wanted for anything. I'm traveling and volunteering in Ethiopia not only because I can, but because I was afforded the education and opportunities to be able to save $15k over four years and travel the world for 8 months. Granted I worked hard and took advantage of opportunities, but like my Mom says, I didn't encounter too many closed doors along my path due to my culture or the color of my skin. So take what I'm saying with a grain of salt, and know that I'm genuinely aware that just being able to reflect on these issues is very touchy-- and I hope I don't offend anyone.
#2 is that culture has been on my mind a lot anyways, because of a somewhat recent heart ache in my personal life that has me a little bitter. After dating off and on for four years, my best friend and boyfriend-- who happens to be Armenian-- ruptured our relationship last August because I'm not Armenian. Sure there were other factors, like the fact that we were 3,000+ miles apart, but the main reason he said was that he felt a "disconnect" between us based on lack of shared background, culture, and common understanding. It really threw me for a loop, not only because he'd never before hinted that this might be a problem for him in the long-term, but it forced me to look at my own questionably biased standards for wanting a "diverse, ethnic man" as a partner. Why is it that in my brief dating history, I'm never attracted to "regular white guys" like my Dad would want? Will a diverse guy even want to be with me, or will he also feel this "disconnect"? Is a disconnect even such a bad thing... aren't we all ultimately a little disconnected, and isn't that part of the beauty of relationships with diverse people-- learning more about ourselves and the world?
So this has been my framework for day-dreaming about the huge "disconnect" I've felt while in Ethiopia, both while struggling to learn Amharic to keep up with my beautiful Habesha friends' conversations, and while going on long drives and imagining what life is like for the tons of people we pass on the road. While I've never felt so much like "the other," I also have a new appreciation and understanding of what it must be like to be a person of color in the states, and even then I know that I'll never fully get it, just like I'll never fully get life in Ethiopia. I think the fact that I'm so consistently conscious of the "disconnect" between me and the people here reflects how privileged I really am in the states, and how I've been able to "become" Mexican or Armenian based on my solid friendships with people of that background. It's like I can easily imagine what it would be like to be born a person of color in the states, to the point that I forget that my ethnic friends look different from me. Here, I forget all the time that I'm white, and then harshly wake up to it when a kid screams ferenje (foreigner) at me while I drive by, or all eyes turn to me when I walk into a restaurant. I've gotten used to it, and acknowledge that it's a cultural difference and normal here, but it's still pretty unsettling.
The most uncomfortable I've been with all this was over the past few days hanging with my Habesha friends who mostly spoke Amharic around me. It was cool at first, trying to learn new words and purposefully goofing up to make them laugh at me. But over time I found myself feeling frustrated, hurt, even angry or thinking they must not like me. I found these emotions ebbed and flowed with my coffee intake, haha, but even when I was happily caffeinated, these sneaking suspicions lingered in the back of my mind when an hour-lunch would pass where 90% of the conversation excluded me.
Today driving from Kombulcha to Addis, I again meditated on the "disconnect" between myself and the people here, and realized it really could be a million reasons-- lack of attention to African issues in the media and in my education, my personal history of having few African American/black friends, how totally different the lifestyle and culture here is from anything I've before experienced, or how different I physically look from the people here. I realized that it's definitely not looks that separate us, but culture, lifestyle and alternate existences in terms of rural vs. urban, indigenous vs. modern. For example, my idea of nature is romantic-- i.e. Anne of Green Gables spinning daisy chains in the grass--whereas young women my age here deal with nature by carrying bundles of sticks for hours and toiling over a stove. It makes me wonder when my grandmother, or even her grandmother, did that, or if anyone in my English/Scottish/German ancestry carried sticks for miles. I look at the rural landscape, and it simply doesn't remind me of anything I've seen before, even where there's eucalyptus and jacaranda and bougainvillea plants. The hills are just too roughly tilled, like every grain of soil has run through someone's rough hand. There's too many people in every direction, and it's a drier, rockier green than I've seen in other places, like the plants and trees are struggling harder to survive. There's virtually no sign of modernity, and this land, this place is foreign to me in every sense of the word.
Through these reflections, I realized that the disconnect I feel here in Ethiopia isn't me vs. Africans, or me vs. African rural land. Rather, it's me vs. myself-- basically becoming conscious of my own forgotten connection to the land, the soil, the rain, and how to "work it." ;)
I felt really happy to realize the origin of my feelings of disconnect, because I feared that it was race-related and based upon how different I look and act vs. people on the side of the road here. Truly, it feels very strange deep down to be ferenje, and almost fills me with sorrow and fear that I could never be like the people here, just like I couldn't "wish myself" to be Armenian. But the beauty is that I realize that the opposite of fear is love... so rather than feel guilty for being white, or fearful that I might be racist for thinking all this, I realize that I need to continue loving all people quite generally, with an open, accepting and embracing heart. And while it's important and beautiful to acknowledge our differences in lifestyle, culture, race and relation to our "roots," I think ultimately we can all love one another as equals, as children of God, and as fellow human beings the world over. Yay for diversity, to realize what you already knew about how despite all our differences, we're all in this together, and we're all ultimately one. :)
Basically, I've never felt so much as "the other" in my whole life, both culturally and racially. I've had tons of really interesting moments-- where I forget that I'm white, where I want to be darker to fit in, but mostly where I'm supremely grateful to have been born into my circumstances, like "thank God that I'm not that barefoot woman on the side of the road carrying 50 pounds of sticks on my back right now." Then of course it's "How can I utilize my own social standing and privilege to try and make life better for her?" I want to write a little about these reflections, to show what I think I've learned about myself, race and culture, and maybe someone reading this will reflect upon themselves and learn something too.
Before getting into it, I want to make two disclaimers about these "uber honest" reflections. #1 is that I acknowledge by unique perspective as a privileged white girl from Orange County (the OC). I was raised in upper-middle-class standards, with a loving family where I never wanted for anything. I'm traveling and volunteering in Ethiopia not only because I can, but because I was afforded the education and opportunities to be able to save $15k over four years and travel the world for 8 months. Granted I worked hard and took advantage of opportunities, but like my Mom says, I didn't encounter too many closed doors along my path due to my culture or the color of my skin. So take what I'm saying with a grain of salt, and know that I'm genuinely aware that just being able to reflect on these issues is very touchy-- and I hope I don't offend anyone.
#2 is that culture has been on my mind a lot anyways, because of a somewhat recent heart ache in my personal life that has me a little bitter. After dating off and on for four years, my best friend and boyfriend-- who happens to be Armenian-- ruptured our relationship last August because I'm not Armenian. Sure there were other factors, like the fact that we were 3,000+ miles apart, but the main reason he said was that he felt a "disconnect" between us based on lack of shared background, culture, and common understanding. It really threw me for a loop, not only because he'd never before hinted that this might be a problem for him in the long-term, but it forced me to look at my own questionably biased standards for wanting a "diverse, ethnic man" as a partner. Why is it that in my brief dating history, I'm never attracted to "regular white guys" like my Dad would want? Will a diverse guy even want to be with me, or will he also feel this "disconnect"? Is a disconnect even such a bad thing... aren't we all ultimately a little disconnected, and isn't that part of the beauty of relationships with diverse people-- learning more about ourselves and the world?
So this has been my framework for day-dreaming about the huge "disconnect" I've felt while in Ethiopia, both while struggling to learn Amharic to keep up with my beautiful Habesha friends' conversations, and while going on long drives and imagining what life is like for the tons of people we pass on the road. While I've never felt so much like "the other," I also have a new appreciation and understanding of what it must be like to be a person of color in the states, and even then I know that I'll never fully get it, just like I'll never fully get life in Ethiopia. I think the fact that I'm so consistently conscious of the "disconnect" between me and the people here reflects how privileged I really am in the states, and how I've been able to "become" Mexican or Armenian based on my solid friendships with people of that background. It's like I can easily imagine what it would be like to be born a person of color in the states, to the point that I forget that my ethnic friends look different from me. Here, I forget all the time that I'm white, and then harshly wake up to it when a kid screams ferenje (foreigner) at me while I drive by, or all eyes turn to me when I walk into a restaurant. I've gotten used to it, and acknowledge that it's a cultural difference and normal here, but it's still pretty unsettling.The most uncomfortable I've been with all this was over the past few days hanging with my Habesha friends who mostly spoke Amharic around me. It was cool at first, trying to learn new words and purposefully goofing up to make them laugh at me. But over time I found myself feeling frustrated, hurt, even angry or thinking they must not like me. I found these emotions ebbed and flowed with my coffee intake, haha, but even when I was happily caffeinated, these sneaking suspicions lingered in the back of my mind when an hour-lunch would pass where 90% of the conversation excluded me.
Today driving from Kombulcha to Addis, I again meditated on the "disconnect" between myself and the people here, and realized it really could be a million reasons-- lack of attention to African issues in the media and in my education, my personal history of having few African American/black friends, how totally different the lifestyle and culture here is from anything I've before experienced, or how different I physically look from the people here. I realized that it's definitely not looks that separate us, but culture, lifestyle and alternate existences in terms of rural vs. urban, indigenous vs. modern. For example, my idea of nature is romantic-- i.e. Anne of Green Gables spinning daisy chains in the grass--whereas young women my age here deal with nature by carrying bundles of sticks for hours and toiling over a stove. It makes me wonder when my grandmother, or even her grandmother, did that, or if anyone in my English/Scottish/German ancestry carried sticks for miles. I look at the rural landscape, and it simply doesn't remind me of anything I've seen before, even where there's eucalyptus and jacaranda and bougainvillea plants. The hills are just too roughly tilled, like every grain of soil has run through someone's rough hand. There's too many people in every direction, and it's a drier, rockier green than I've seen in other places, like the plants and trees are struggling harder to survive. There's virtually no sign of modernity, and this land, this place is foreign to me in every sense of the word.Through these reflections, I realized that the disconnect I feel here in Ethiopia isn't me vs. Africans, or me vs. African rural land. Rather, it's me vs. myself-- basically becoming conscious of my own forgotten connection to the land, the soil, the rain, and how to "work it." ;)
I felt really happy to realize the origin of my feelings of disconnect, because I feared that it was race-related and based upon how different I look and act vs. people on the side of the road here. Truly, it feels very strange deep down to be ferenje, and almost fills me with sorrow and fear that I could never be like the people here, just like I couldn't "wish myself" to be Armenian. But the beauty is that I realize that the opposite of fear is love... so rather than feel guilty for being white, or fearful that I might be racist for thinking all this, I realize that I need to continue loving all people quite generally, with an open, accepting and embracing heart. And while it's important and beautiful to acknowledge our differences in lifestyle, culture, race and relation to our "roots," I think ultimately we can all love one another as equals, as children of God, and as fellow human beings the world over. Yay for diversity, to realize what you already knew about how despite all our differences, we're all in this together, and we're all ultimately one. :)
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