Welcome (Back) to Freshman Year

The only other afro in Kolkata!

Every Fall, young Black Americans  across the states engage in a very specific “coming of age” ceremony.  A quincenera of sorts – only it is forced on us by the country in which we live, isn’t a whole lot of fun and happens when we turn 18.  It is the experience of going to a college that is not an HBCU and realizing that your mere presence is an event of sheer wonderment.  You are a novelty to many, a figure of ceaseless curiosity to most.

When I was 18 years old, I enrolled at the University of New Orleans, a state school with a good reputation and a handful of students (a child’s handful of professors) who looked like me.  What I remember most about my freshman year at UNO:

1.Whenver I was absent, everyone seemed to notice. (“Hey, why weren’t you in Freshman Comp yesterday?”) When I walked into class, random students would sometimes greet me by retracing every step I had taken on campus within the last 48 hours.   (“I saw you in the University Center right after you left the admissions office.  Did you like the meatloaf that you had for lunch in the cafeteria at 12:54 p.m. when you were sitting by that table closest to the door?”)

2. Because of #1, I often questioned why white students wanted to be my “friend.”  While I have no stories of obnoxious white guys trying to fulfill their black girl fantasies or presumptuous white girls trying to sneak and touch my hair, I do distinctly remember always being able to locate the other black person within 10 seconds of entering any room.  Walking around campus, it became second nature to spot one of us several buildings away and know with absolute certainty that the other black person had spotted me, too.  No words needed to be exchanged once we were within close enough range to verify that Yes, you are “the” event here, too, aren’t you? 

I have thought of that first year at UNO several times since I have been in Kolkata. I am no longer a self-conscious adolescent who finds any untoward look or comment worthy of passionate, vocalized emotion on my part.  I am a 36 year old woman who understands that people’s perceptions of and reactions to me are the issues of those particular people and therefore, must be addressed (or not) by them. 

It is quite interesting to be reliving my freshman year of college as an adult, though.

In Kolkata, random people greet me by retracing my every move.  A few days ago, one of the other guests in my hotel waved at me when we both happened to be at the pool.  “We saw you at the Victoria Memorial,” she beamed.  Really?  I wonder how?  There were HUNDREDS of people at the Memorial on that quiet, breezey Sunday afternoon.  I don’t bother asking this lady how she was able to spot ME out of the masses because this little lady seems to spot me all the time.  At breakfast.  In the gym.  Walking back to the hotel from the school where I am teaching…

The hotel staff does not ask for my room number when I walk in for the breakfast buffet.  They say, “Good morning, Ms. Kendrick.”  They are waiting for me by the time I reach the cafe as they have spotted me as soon as I stepped off the elevator.  At a cocktail party the management threw for its long-term guests, the sales manager casually mentioned, “When I see you in the mornings at breakfast, I want to say hello, but I understand that you are busy and need to run to school, so I just let you eat your egg and toast.”  When was this woman at breakfast?  How does she know I have an egg and toast each morning?  Should I put the lock on my door tonight?

I have not bothered to search the streets of Kolkata for another one like me.  I was here last year; my eyes already understand that they should not waste  time on such fruitless endeavors.  So, imagine my shock when I am at a cultural event and…there is another black lady.  With nappy hair. 

I hear her voice before I actually see her face and the neat rows of bantu knots covering her head.  When the dance troupe finishes its performance and asks the audience if it has questions, I am only partially paying attention when I hear it.  The voice of a black woman.  I crane my neck to get a closer look and am embarrased by the need I have to speak to this woman.  RIGHT NOW.  The need is so great that I suppress the urge to yell across the room, “Have YOU been “the” event everywhere you have gone, too?!”

Once the audience begins to disperse, I do something I did not often do during my freshman year in college. I intentionally go over to the other black person in the room with the conscious awareness that I am going over to the other black person in the room to talk about being the other black person (apparently) in Kolkata.  “Hey, how are you,” I begin.

“We should talk in the hall,” she answers.

And it is in the hall, that we do what our younger selves never thought we had the right to do when we were in college.  After all, we were the inheritants of the spoils of the Civil Rights Movement.  We could not, WOULD NOT sully Dr. King’s dream with admitted feelings of discomfort.  Questions of whether or not realizing the dream was worth these feelings of discomfort. 

“Yes, I am a constant topic of conversation when our group is out,” Iris tells me.  “We were in a temple the other day and some woman actually reached out and grabbed my hair.”

I tell Iris about the school girl who looked at me in utter horror.  She tells me about the rolled eyes and squinched up noses of nearly everyone in the airport when she first landed, her hair in braids.   On a Fulbright Fellowship with 16 other travelers, Iris, too, has had curious Indians try to guess at her country of origin.

“Camaroon?, they say.  South Africa?  Ivory Coast?” I add to the list of random African nations that have been thrown at me by street hawkers trying to get me to “just take look” at their merchandise.

“How long does it usually take them to guess America,” I ask Iris.  We both force an awkward laugh when Iris admits, “I have to tell them.  They never guess America.”  Some look taken aback when we tell them that we were born in the same country as President Barack Obama, the man several of our curious Indian brethern have told us they adore.

We talk a few minutes more about the textbook reasons why we would be so intriguing to the people here.  We joke about that scene in Good Hair when Chris Rock gets on an India-bound plane to figure out where the hell is all of this weave hair coming from and how do weave hair entrepreneurs manage to get enough of it to keep business booming back in the states?

When it is time to leave, Iris turns a bit solemn.  “You know, I have been interested in coming to India for a while now.  I read a lot of travel memoirs and skimmed blogs about this part of the world.”  I already know what she is about to say.

“No one ever writes about this particular India experience.” She looks surprised by this revelation as well as annoyed by it.

I think back to freshman year and how relieved I was when it was over.  How I have only talked about those two semesters of constant visibility a dozen or so times and only when in the company of others who had gone through this bizarre rite of passage. 

“You’re right,” I tell Iris as I head back into the room to join my friends.  “I wonder why.”

Lost in Translation

(Moments) Before the Sky Started Falling

When the world is made up of billions of different people who speak hundreds of different languages and believe in twice as many variations of God, it is comforting to know that there are commonalities among this breed of animal we call HUMANS.  Recently, I found refuge in the common experience of sitting in a movie theater, allowing myself to be taken on a light, fun journey.

When Lena suggested we all go see Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara one evening, my first thought was: As long as it is air conditioned and doesn’t require having to negotiate another rate with another huckster taxi driver, I will do anything you ask.  My second thought: Wait…we don’t speak Hindi.  I was reassured that there really wasn’t much need to actually speak the language to enjoy the movie or even to follow the storyline. 

And THAT is the beauty of this universal experience of going to the picture show. As it turned out, I followed Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara pretty well. 

The Story: There was a really hot guy who was so beautiful that I found it hard to look directly at him as I feared I would go completely blind.  This beautiful man, Hrithik Roshan, had two buddies.  One was getting married and all three decided to go to Spain for a male bonding experience.  Hrithik The Beautiful had insecurities when it came to the ladies (This is the one aspect of the movie that has me completely baffled).  His soon-to-be married friend had a domineering, annoying fiancé.  His other friend had some abandonment issues with his father he had yet to resolve.  The three buddies drove around a lot and had adventures (by themselves and with random girls), shared laughs and drank beer.  Sometimes, there were odd moments where the only thing that was taking place on screen was Hrithik The Beautiful looking beautiful. This would go on for minutes at a time.  Hrithik would lie across the convertible as his buddy drove….looking beautiful.  Hrithik would become overly emotional on a sailboat and begin to cry…looking beautiful.  In between the male bonding experiences and Hrithik looking beautiful, the characters would just start singing and dancing.  In an open market where people were buying vegetables, during the convertible ride that featured Hrithik looking beautiful and once, singing and dancing spontaneously broke out while the three buddies were engaged in a citywide tomato fight. 

While the movie itself translated well to me and the other American movie goers, it was the experience at the movie theater that was most familiar.  I found it very comforting to know that there are OTHER people of color who do not feel pressure to be quiet in a movie theater.  Who believe that the movie going experience is a conversation, not a lecture.  When Hrithik Roshan walked onto the screen, the entire theater cheered and whooped as if we were at a football game.  And this was not a quick round of applause with a whispered “Yay, it’s Hrithik” kind of thing.  The exuberance lasted for almost a minute.  And included whistling and extensive commentary.  It was like being in the Magic Johnson Theater on 125^th Street, only the movie was almost three hours long and popcorn and soda came in one size – small.

I left the movie theater feeling like the world could be united, if only through Hrithik The Beautiful and other freakishly handsome actors like him.  “We are all more alike than different,” I mused.  The empty popcorn boxes strewn on the theater floor.  The reenactment of funny scenes by satisfied audience members as they headed back onto the busy city street.  I know this.  This is not foreign at all.  This experience has not been lost in translation.  I wonder what other ones have managed to transcend countries and languages. 

As luck would have it, Lena’s birthday happens a few days later and we all decide to go to a hookah lounge to celebrate.  This, too, is very familiar.  There are swanky couches outlining the club.  A young couple cuddles up on one of those couches, dim lights creating just enough naughtiness to make the youngsters feel grown up.  There is a d.j. playing what he thinks is good music, but what we recognize as Vanilla Ice.  There is greasy bar food.  There are drinks.  There is the requisite older man who sees a table full of youngish women.  He buys the table the requisite round of beverages and we politely thank him for this kindness by pretending to listen to him talk about his businesses. 

There is dancing while tipsy. 

There is ceaseless taking of photos.

It all feels like just another Saturday night in New York City.

Until…the ceiling in the bathroom begins to crumble and a person comes careening down into the stall.

Now, this, can only happen in India.

When the three of us who happen to witness the sky falling run screaming from the bathroom, the manager rushes over to apologize profusely for “this terrible inconvenience.”  He explains that the kitchen is above the bathroom and the guy was a cook.  None of us are sure how or why this cook went from steaming a few momos to falling through the ceiling, BUT…

Some things just don’t translate well.  We ask if the guy who just came crashing through the bathroom is okay.  Even strongly suggest someone take him to the hospital.  The manager nonchalantly waves off our concerns.

“We will get you a complimentary hookah.”  He looks at the six of us and adjusts.  “We will get you two hookahs.  Now come, Ma’am…come to our private lounge.”

This is the first time I was in a restaurant’s bathroom minding my own business when an employee came tumbling through the ceiling.  This is the first time the manager spends more time trying to pacify me than tending to his busted up property OR better yet, his potentially busted up employee.

This experience does not translate.  This experience is exclusive to India.

Perhaps It’s More Than “Just Hair”

The Afro in Action

If you have seen Good Hair, Chris Rock’s humorous documentary detailing the struggle Black girls endure to straighten their kinky hair, you have been granted entree into an ongoing contention in Black America. The lengths  to which many of us will go in order to obtain the long, flowing silkiness of “good hair.”  Unlike a lot of Black women who choose not to straighten their hair, I have no real political perspective on sistahs who live by the weave and plan to die by the weave.  I do not consider my kinky cloud of hair visual proof of my racial pride or present it as some sign that I am able to love myself more than Black women who meticulously perm or weave their hair.  I will admit,though, choosing to walk the world with an afro feels defiant.  And I like that defiance.  However, I rarely think of my hair as anything other than an inconsequential component of my physical description.  Keturah:  5’4.  155 pounds.  Smooth, Caramel Skin.  Nappy ‘Fro.

The only time I think of my hair as its own seperate entity is when others make my ‘fro its own seperate entity.

And if you remember the segment in Good Hair when the audience is taken to India, the number one locale for the finest quality of “good hair” to which weave makers flock, you will probably not be too surprised that here in Kolkata, my kinky hair has become its own seperate entity.  Cindy has shared, “I LOVE walking behind you when we’re out.  The looks on people’s faces – especially the kids…” 

And what are these looks, you ask?

Well, they run the gambit.  From open-mouth gapes of awe to giggles and shy waves to literally large crowds of school children following me through the streets.  The looks are sometimes accompanied by words spattered in faltering English from school children and their parents alike.  “Are you from South Africa?”  “Your hair…how do you…your hair…I have not seen anything like that?”  “How do you comb it?”  “Why is it red?” “I want to touch it.”  “I want to take a picture with it.”

These minor riots my gigantic red afro have caused are no more than inconvienient pieces of street theater to me.  Another interruption on my journey to get to somewhere in a set amount of time which will prolong what I thought would be one quick, simple errand.  I, along with Cindy, find these riots comical.  I understand them; when I look out on the streets of Kolkata, I see no other head that remotely resembles mine.  For miles and miles, nothing but long, sleek black hair.  This morning I looked in the mirror and almost did a double take.  What the hell is that, I wanted to ask.  Little wonder the locals can not look away.

BUT…

It is days like yesterday when I find it difficult to laugh at the attention my hair gets.  When the gapes are not of awe, but of horror.  While crossing a foot bridge to get to an outdoor shopping mall, the requisite collection of school children spotted me and two of the other American teachers, Breanna and Audra.  Their eyes immediately go to my hair.  Because I am focused on getting to this mall and am worried about the other women in our group who have not appeared in the taxi that was supposed to be following ours, I do not pay much attention to the looks.  I assume, like always, they fall into the awe or extreme curiosity category.

“I think you are scaring them, Keturah,” Breanna notices.

Fear.

My naps are causing fear?

I turn around and catch the eye of the youngest girl among the group.  And I see it.  Before I smile and wave at her and she returns that kindness, I see it clearly in her eyes.  She is horrified.

And try as I might to focus on buying a few more kameezes, perhaps a bangle or two, I can not stop a recorded tape from playing in my head.  The voice on the tape belongs to one of the Black girls who I teach back in the U.S. “I do not take pictures unless I have a new weave.  I wish my mother would let me stay home when I take my weave out and haven’t had a chance to go to the salon to get my hair done.”  Also on that tape is another Black girl.  Her voice over is blunt.  “I absolutely hate my hair.”  And another: “Hair should be straight.  I don’t know why anyone would want their hair to look like yours and Ms. Lavonne’s.”

I do not want to hear these students.  I want to think of my hair as just an inconsequential component of my physical description, but in addition to the voices of my students, I am also remembering the conversation this morning I had with Aysha, an Indian-American teacher in the program. In her early 30s, Aysha’s  mother has been trying to marry her off for a number of years now.  “One day I overheard her on the phone talking to some guy she wanted to fix me up with,” Aysha rolled her eyes.  “He actually asked her what complexion I was and I heard her say I was ‘wheaty.’ Can you believe that shit?” 

Wheaty means she was on just the right side of brown.  And ran no risk of strolling further to the other side.  It is a question that Aysha’s mother and the mothers of her friends field all the time as they try to find potential suitors for their daughters.

On the foot bridge, the young girl’s look of fear dissolved the moment I smiled at her.  When I waved, she flashed a timid smile and greeted me as all Indian children greet pretty much every adult they encounter, scray or not.  “Hello, Ma’am.”  The moment was over and Audra, Breanna and I made our way to the mall, eventually meeting up with the rest of our group.

I have had little success silencing that tape of my students, though.  And I find myself unable to downplay the message that is sent when a woman of color’s complexion poses to be a potential deal breaker in a budding courtship.  I would like to hold on to the belief that my hair is only of interest here because it is so unique.  That the stares I get are not any different from the stares the other American teachers get as well.

The next time I cause a minor riot, I will fight harder to silence the tape of my students.  I will tell myself that the desire Indian men have for lighter skinned women is not a new phenomenon among cultures that have been colonized.  The “wheat” test is no different than the “brown paper bag” test.  I will remind myself that the gigantic red afro is not an expression of my racial pride or some trite political perspective.

I will not search the faces of the young, counting those that register trauma.

8 Americans Roaming Around an Airport

Ashu is our leader.

We elected him while we were still in Washington, D.C.  As a matter of fact, as all eight of the educators who had been selected by American Councils for International Education (ACIE) to represent our country in India arrived in Dulles airport for our one-day orientation, Ashu just BECAME our leader.

“Hey, you’re with the India program, huh?”  Ashu warmly greeted each of us before informing us that he was arranging for a shuttle for all of us.  It would cost us $20 each. This made more sense than individual cabs and would be smart since we all would probably be arriving late to the first meeting and “if we’re all late, then they can’t really start without us, right?”

I don’t know what they plan on doing, I glanced at my teaching peers hailing from Baltimore, North Carolina, Ohio and Boston and other states  I remembered from skimming their bios.  But, I will be following this dude around Kolkata; my mama didn’t raise no fools.

Ashu is a good leader.  He is male. And right now, as we roam around the airport in Dubai with 7 full hours to kill before we connect to our flight to Kolkata, Ashu’s gender is really all that we need.  His assertiveness, his attention to “just making sure we should go here or ask this or not walk through those doors” is rather helpful as well. But, as for now.  This very moment…I am willing to follow him because he is MALE and…

Laura and I want to actually leave the airport and go out into the glitzy glam of Dubai.  The sun is beginning to set and I do not want to traipse around town with Laura, a perfectly lovely and assertive, detail-oriented person, but NOT A MALE.  Perhaps with Ashu, we have some protection, some validation for being out at night.

While our peers vacillate between camping out on the airport floors or coming with us to explore Dubai, Ashu, Laura and I strategize just how we are going to go about this mini-adventure.  We first need to figure out just where we need to be five hours from now when it’s time to board our flight.  We also need to find out where to exchange some dollars for whatever the currency is here in Dubai.  AND we need to find a bathroom so we can brush our teeth and pretty up for the big city.

Under Ashu’s guidance, we all roam Dubai’s massive airport amidst cursory glances from women covered head to toe in black robes.  The husbands and children, who are also covered in varying degrees, travel with these women and throw us curious looks.  With each step we take, I count the number of women who are not covered; thirty minutes pass and I have only seen a handful.

I look over at Laura, clad in yoga pants that she jokingly admitted she outgrew several summers ago and a t-shirt that barely covers her butt.  I look down at myself, wearing what I like to think of as my CUTE gym clothes because the flourescent pink t-shirt matches the florescent pink stripe running down either side of my stretch pants.  I think about the last time my cute gym outift made it to this part of the world.  One summer ago…in Kolkata… I was wearing this exact same outfit while walking down a sunny street.  A man asked me to get into his car.  When I looked at him like he was out of his mind and gave him the universal, “Negro, pahlease” look, this man seemed genuinely surprised.

It was my intent that Ashu would be taken for our wealthy husband if Laura and I went out to visit the city with him.  Or like our uncle/big brother escort around town.  Perhaps, this might not be the role in which our Middle Eastern brothers and sisters placed Laura and I in reference to Ashu.

“Uh..Laura…we look like whores,” I say in the nicest way possible.  “Let’s not go out into Dubai.”

Laura chuckles.  And so does Ashu.  Somewhere in between the duty-free liquor store and duty-free “random crap to take home to your relatives” store, the 8 Americans spot a Starbucks.  It is here where we wait.