Adaptation

Living and traveling in Africa made me lose some of my faith in humanity, as well as in me.  It wore me down, made me like people less, and brought out the worst in me. 

Life in Africa is harsh, and the people have to adapt. In the end, I did.

It seemed that everywhere I looked there was someone trying to take advantage of me. As a result, I became hardened.  I was hostile, cold, and unsympathetic.

In Cameroon, men view women as property and objects to be used.  When I walked down the street they would suck air through their teeth, grunt, or call me names like “bébé” and “ma chéri.” They leered at me like I was a meal or the last chance in the sweepstakes for another life. Sometimes when I did not respond, or I reacted rudely, they would become hostile – as if I had breached an obligation to offer myself to them - calling me arrogant or accusing me of being racist.

I stopped dressing in anything that might draw attention to me. I quit looking men in the eye because that behavior could be perceived as welcoming. I didn’t smile.  If I did meet a man’s eye it was with a stone-cold gaze that said “I will mess you up.” I don’t know how many times I said that in my head, always ready for a fight.  Sometimes men would grab my arms, and I’d slap their hands away. I once knocked a man off his kiosk stool after he held my wrist too tightly. Another time, I picked up a rock and stared down a drunk who was following me. He mumbled something and backed off.

As a tourist, I lived by a code: never let your guard down.

Male vendors would ask for outrageous prices, sometimes up to ten times the normal cost.

Taxi drivers were the worst culprits.  A few times we agreed on the cost, and then when we reached the destination they demanded more.  “You’re stingy!” a cab driver once screamed at me after I left him with the amount he had initially accepted. I felt vindicated when I also cost him his next fare by telling two foreign girls that he couldn’t be trusted.

Another time I walked into a hotel with the driver trailing me as I shouted at him that I would not give him more money.  He tried to negotiate the price with the male hotel manager instead of me while I stood by and screeched, “This is between you and me! Look at me!”

It felt like wherever I went, I was at war.  I had become so accustomed to these battles that once, when I was given the right price, I didn’t believe it.

“Six thousand,” the driver quoted.

“Sixty thousand! That’s ridiculous!” I yelled.
“No. Six thousand.”

“I’m not paying sixty!”

Patiently enunciating his words the driver repeated, “No. Six…..One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.”

“Oh,” I lowered my voice. “Sorry. I’m just used to people trying to make me pay more.”

The man smiled and assured me he treated everyone the same. We are all human, he said. I nodded in awe from the back seat, wrapping myself in the warmth of words that made me feel like a person again.

In Tanzania, I counted seven of eight days when someone tried to scam me.  The exchange rate is “such and such” I was told, and then when I pulled out my calculator and it didn’t add up, it changed. Twice.  I got on a bus and was told it cost one price, and then it changed to double that price when I sat down. When I pulled out my phone to make alternative travel arrangements, the price went back to the original quote.

In a discussion with a few African males, I told them I felt harassed.  I sited an example from just a few days before when a row of males urinating by the side of the road, with their zippers undone, mockingly called hello to me, trying to get my attention as I passed near them.

The discussion hit a wall when they didn’t believe me and a Tanzanian woman, who had begun in a quiet and shy voice, found herself asserting that she would never be with an African man. She gritted her teeth and clenched her fist as she declared, “I hate Tanzanian men because they have no respect!”

With women, especially like her, I was more patient. But I was still angry. I was facing their men on the front line, and I decried them for not being there with me. I condemned them for their weakness, their focus on fake hair, the newest fashions, and their tenth child, while their men belittled me in the streets. Their silence had brought us there too.

Moreover, I disliked westerners more and more every day.  I saw the effects of colonization and exploitation and could not help but retrace the steps back to their closed doors with the sign hanging: hear no evil, see no evil.  Tourists had no respect for local culture and customs, no thought to long-term consequences of their actions. They were arrogant and condescending.

By the end of my travels in Africa, I didn’t like anyone much, including me.

Now that I’ve reached Thailand, I’m beginning to forgive myself.  I’ve realized that this is not who I am. I developed certain traits because those were the ones I thought I needed to protect myself.  I was who I felt I had to be in order to survive. But I don’t need them anymore. I have begun to take off the armor.

I also have to forgive others and remember it is not who they are, but the result of their environments, and factors such as poverty and desperation (not to mention the tourism industry). As individuals, we are shaped by the world around us.

I met a man the other day that resents the word “farang,” a Thai word for westerner. He said Thai people treat him with hostility and he is an outsider. My father experienced the same as a “gringo” in El Salvador.

We must also take individual responsibility for the collective.

It is clearer to me now that there is no difference between what we do to others and what we do to ourselves. There is but a delicate line between the two.

There is a saying in buddhism that is "drive all blames into one," meaning we must start with ourselves.

I am smiling and making eye contact again.  I am wearing tank tops that show my shoulders. And I am slowly regaining faith in myself, and consequently, humanity.