existabovethenoise

Takiyah Gray is a Brown University alum, who is currently an elementary school teacher in Vietnam. With her Trinidadian passport in tow, she treks the world in search of good eats, teaching opportunities, and sane couch surfers. She is a talented dancer and yogini, whose Trini roots keep her near tropical beaches as frequently as possible. Existabovethenoise.com readers may remember her as the friend I was staying with in Thailand back in January – check out the My Thai post.

We’re not in Thailand anymore, Toto. Sure, there are still roosters crowing at all hours of the day. Yes, there are street vendors hawking their wares—from fly-flecked pork innards to hanging pieces of chewy, salted squid, to the ever present random assortment of locks of various shapes and sizes. But this is Vietnam, and the people here sure do not like to smile at the odd looking stranger.

Some people think that the best moments of life unfold when you put yourself outside of your comfort zone. In her latest book, Committed, a mere $2.50 per Xeroxed copy in the backpacker district of Ho Chi Minh City, Elizabeth Gilbert agrees. She says that “I had ago learned that when you are the giant, alien visitor to a remote and foreign culture, it is sort of your job to become an object of ridicule.” For better or worse, I have been happily toeing that uncomfortable line for much of my existence, ever since my mother decided to bring me from Trinidad to America at the age of 2. Maybe this initial trip is what sealed my future as a world traveler, because since then, I’ve been crafty and fortunate enough to peak into life in countries like Sweden, Brazil, and Spain. (I say crafty, because anyone that knows me KNOWS that there had to be an ulterior motive to joining the glee club back in high school– clearly it was the summer trip to France). Not surprisingly though, nowhere has that discomfort been more present than here in South East Asia. Here, I am a complete foreigner, and boy do I stand out. In this part of the world, it’s not just my language that pegs me as different, but my height, my skin tone, everything that I’ve ever used to define myself. And believe you me, wherever I am the locals cannot wait to figure out what a tall black woman is doing in their country of size 4 shoes and K-pop idolizations. Though we in America are proud to have elected our first black president 4 years ago, many people on this side of the world are still incredulous that Americans can look like me. Add to this the fact that I still retain my Trinidadian citizenship and people are all the more confused. I, myself, pause to figure out which country I will say I am from today—do I go for the mildly puzzled look when I say that I am from the US or the completely dumbfounded look as I try to explain about where the Caribbean is?

No one needed this geography lesson more than a woman I recently interviewed with. Now, as a visitor in South East Asia, I am grateful for the opportunity to work as a teacher. It’s a downright privilege when my peers and I can travel, work and realize a standard of living that is generally higher than most of the population around us (simply because we speak English and carry TEFL degrees). My year of living in a beachside house on a Thai island was made possible by precisely these things. But they aren’t always enough, and apparently, having made the move to Vietnam, I was starting at square one all over again.

At this particular interview, I quickly learned that I was missing — what in the Dominican Republic they call — “buena aparencia.” Instead of a normal interview, where the trained and professional interviewer and skilled and eager interviewee go back and forth about the school, expectations and relevant work experience, I spent the entire time trying to prove that no, Trinidad and Tobago was NOT a country in South Africa (?!) and that YES I grew up with English as my first language. The interview ended with a cold, “If you are short-listed for a position, I’ll let you know in a few months.” The entire “interview” lasted a grueling 10 minutes. I had spent more time that morning trying to figure out an updo for my twists! Never before had I been in such a hostile interview environment. Later that night I spent many hours plotting the exact flavor of the very pointed email that would say thanks but no thanks, up yours, and oh yeah, I’ve attached a world atlas for your convenience.

Was I surprised that this level of ignorance could come from a fellow educator? The sad truth is no, not really. The fact is, before embarking on this journey almost 2 years ago, I had braced myself for many more scenarios like this one. Fortunately for me, Thailand never presented an issue, and I was able to find work without problems. Now that I’m in Vietnam, however, other brown-skinned expat friends, namely Filipino teachers who face similar prejudices, have warned me about this kind of overt racism. I’ve heard of many different ways to this overcome the issue, including lying about citizenship and leaving out the requisite photo that most schools ask for in their applications. What’s a girl to do?

For the most part, I realize that I travel to learn and to have others learn about me. So I put up with the stares, the odd looks, the oogly eyes, and the scores of parents with varying levels of discretion nudging their children as I go past, to make sure that they catch a glimpse of me. I spend the extra 10 minutes at the grocery stores, hunting out the soaps and lotions and deodorants that don’t have whitening ingredients in them. I choose the work environments where I know I will be treated with respect. I know many expats, mostly men, who are happy to make the permanent leap over to this side of the world. Me? I am grateful for the experience to observe these moments; at the end of it all, I’ll be glad to get back to my little corner of Kansas..erg…Boston.

The last familiar face I saw before I boarded my United flight to Delhi 6 months ago was my mother’s. We had been through this routine before, of coming and going, for a decade or so now. And see, she and I, we are like Skittles – Colorful hard shells around soft, oozy insides. Except hard shells on people are made of nothing sweet. So what could have, maybe should have, been a more emotional encounter actually was a much more mundane scene than most. I’m sure there was a hug; perhaps an exchange of grumbles about my extra baggage and a very tearless farewell, but otherwise this was an uneventful scene. I’ve learned that two tough, bitterly proud cookies don’t always look well upon the mutual exposure of soft, mushy things. And, with all the love we have for each other – the optics were the equivalent of a straight faced, Kanye shoulder shrug about what would be two (more) years of nothing but space and opportunity.

It has been a speedy 6 months between then and now, but much has happened. I have set foot in 5 countries since then. I have read books about the quarter life crisis that’s been eating at me for about 2 years. I’ve started paying back bills incurred as a result of (unsuccessfully) buying my way out of said crisis. I’ve read. I’ve prayed. I’ve traveled. I’ve loved. I’ve lost. I’ve laughed at myself. I’ve worked OT that I haven’t gotten paid for. And I’m here. Writing. And what, in tarnations, has been going on outside of me? *Pin drop* [Problem identified] I have been in a self-generated bubble that burst upon arrival in Germany and unfortunately soft, cushy, gooey stuff has spilled all over my life since.

I was pretty sure that I was going to die of a stomach bug before I arrived. So, my priorities weren’t such that I wrapped my head around what this reunion might mean. I was excited for the trip, but I wasn’t anxious about seeing my family again. I wasn’t really elated the way I think I should have been. I was just glad to not have to ride in a tuk tuk or eat daal for a week. I arrived in one piece, without the assistance of an adult diaper, and there was Germany – in all her splendor.

You’ve got to be a jackass or an amphibian (no offense to amphibians) to not find something to love about Munich. For you brainy types, there is the Technical Museum. For you ‘barefoot in the grass’ types, there’s the English Garden. There are churches for the godly, castles for the primadonnas, sidewalks for the fit, and clean air for the living. What more could you possibly ask for? Me, personally, I asked for BMW tours, a good tapas bar, men over 5 foot 7, shoe stores that carry my size, safe drinking water from the tap, a facial, and Black people (every cake needs a cherry on top). And, oh man, did this vacation deliver? Or did it deliver?

What it also delivered were 4 of my closest family members. Three women who have been thick as thieves since they had their own quarter life crises, and my big little brother who just graduated from college and will surely need all my 20 something crisis books very, very soon. You can imagine all the gushy things that should have happened, because all the movies tell us they should. We should have gone camping and toasted marshmallows and stared into the night sky. Or maybe we were supposed to go around the table at our first dinner and say what we were thankful for. But, as Em would say, “You Black!” Hence, none of that actually happened. Though, if my shell weren’t so hard and so unsweetened, something could have. Maybe?

Instead, we went forth sightseeing like real tourists. Ate out at restaurants that we got lost finding. We laughed at having to share one bathroom, and got pissed at having to share one internet connection. We discovered that the maid actually spoke Spanish, go figure. We realized that the ventilated air smelled like poo. And we did it all together. It was like being at home again, in having to be around the same people. People I’ve known forever. Day in and day out. Had it really been 6 months since I’d seen them? It had been much longer since we’d spent 7 days in the same place. And yet here we were. And there were no fireworks?

I came back from Germany with my stomach more steady, my bank account lighter and a bit more ‘we’ in my ‘I’ stew. And that left me ambivalent. I didn’t have words to describe the recognition of what years of distance had created. And I don’t think I was prepared to notice it as much as I had. On the other hand, though, what an awesome place to rediscover the art of togetherness while battling the sea legs that come with it. After all, Germany is a place where broken and bitter things have happened. Space and opportunity has been more than hard shells with no mutual ground; it has meant extermination and separation. And yet, these days, certain human triumphs live on and fuel a mending of fences – or a filling in of the once barren land on either side of the Berlin wall. There is a shame in being the site of such vast heartache and loss, but much has come of trying to understand the aspects of human nature that made such pain possible in the first place. There is also the intangible sense that forgiving one’s self for a shared past has an unspoken role in an altogether more positive future.

While I have been away from America for 6 months, I have been away from my family for what feels like all of my life. My mother was 9 when the Newark Riots happened. The Berlin Wall fell the same year my brother was born. I turned a sweet 16 the year the Twin Towers fell. And my father quotes his father more now that his father is no more. I’d say we all have mending to do. All told, it’s taken all the time between when I left Munich until now to understand that while there are advantages to bon voyages and hard shells, my next quarter century can suffer a little less of both. So, I’m taking Germany’s example and learning to reckon with my nature and my past to bridge the divide between a few less ‘I’ and a lot more ‘we’ statements in the road ahead. Now if only this road less traveled also came with a German engineered vehicle.

…A girl can dream