In the tiny amount of time I dedicated of my pre-Bdesh life to preparing to come here I read about the attention bestowed upon foreigners here. But, since the book compared the attention to a famous movie star among fans, it was easy to forget it might be a problem.
We get a lot of attention. A lot of it is because of the children, especially the wee blond headed Lena. A lot of it is because of me. In a particularly skinny part of Asia I stand out even more than the usual visitor.
Crowds gather. We're often followed. Fingers point. Laughing, etc.
It can be stressful. So you develop coping strategies.
I went to a night market with Summer one time. A group of teenage girls followed me around for a while laughing and pointing at me while I perused gold ribboned fabric. I was suddenly so angry! My mind and heart raced for an outlet and what came into my head was all of the opportunity I have in my life compared to these girls. Instead of a zen like moment of charitable outreach, I wanted to shove it in their faces. "I've had opportunities you can't even dream of!" I wanted to shout, tantrum-like. "So leave me alone!"
I made it through the evening without indulging in that particular fantasy, and since then I've wanted to find out how others here cope. I felt like I needed something other than gloating about my wheel of fortune first world upbringing. I've asked around and heard how others cope with the public moments when you'd give anything for anonymity.
Don't make eye contact.
Keep walking.
Laugh a lot.
Pretend you're surrounded by aliens.
Pretend like everything around you is in slow motion.
Think of another place in the world, a busy place, like an intersection. Remember that people are sitting at that intersection right now, waiting for a light to change.
3 comments:
Well I have always really LOVED your laugh (as in sometimes wishing I was watching a funny movie with you so I could hear your laugh and laugh with you) so I would go with laugh a lot.
Hi Andra! This is Emily C.(Jeremy from Vashon's wife). Your mom showed me your blog back when you were living in Vietnam and I have been so interested in reading your stories from Bangladesh.
When reading your post about coping, it made me think about being a tall, blonde Mormon missionary in dark, swarthy Romania--I stuck out like a really, really sore thumb. Whenever people would laugh/point/follow us, we would always try to talk with them and ask more about their city & country(except for the street kids who tried to throw firecrackers up our dresses--we just got out of there!).
You could ask the teenage girls about the best music from Bangladesh or the best place to find a sari. They might love to practice English with you too. You could ask moms about the best place to buy naan or the best place to take kids to play. You could ask the men about the best places to watch a soccer match.
It always seemed to diffuse the situation when I showed a genuine interest in their city and the things that were important to them. I always had to remind myself too that they were probably just really curious about who these crazy foreigners were and what we were doing there. Plus, we found out about really cool things when we talked to the locals and made lots of friends. Hopefully this would work in Bangladesh too. Good luck! Please keep posting about your adventures too--they're very interesting to read.
Bryce pointed out to me what a downer of a post that was yesterday and I've been feeling a bit bad about it. I feel like I had better post something more upbeat.
Emily, you're absolutely right. I forget how much my own actions and feelings affect the outcome of a decision. I can definitely do better.
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