Minor Adjustments

If you've ever lived in a foreign country, you understand that sometimes things happen that you can neither control nor really explain.  I carry around this foreignness with me at all times because I am somewhere between Canadian and Indian - every situation comes with two possible reactions, two paths of action, and two different outcomes.    

So I laugh at a lot. 

Mostly at myself, but also at the things that Canadians and Indians do and say that seem totally normal to them. 

But aren’t.

I’m now learning a new set of ‘normal’ and trying not to laugh (and failing).

I went to the market with our cook in the faint hope that I would find great deals.  He is my soulmate in shopping matters.  This quiet, rotund man kept up a steady pace to the market (instead of dawdling), greeted everyone on-the-go (once carrying on a discussion with a man on a disappearing moto), and raced through the unevenly cobblestoned/planked obstruction course that is the market to find everything he needed in the most efficient way possible.  He haggled over the price of a few cans of tomato paste with a woman and then said he was taking his business elsewhere because it was cheaper.

“She is my wife,” he confided gently as we ran around another set of ramshackle tables to find powdered milk (and, incidentally, the only man who, on good days, sold all-purpose flour). 

“Oh, ho-ho,” I laughed knowledgeably.

“Your wife?” I hissed a few minutes later.

“Yes.”

“But--  Y-you…  We…  We could have bought everything from her.”

“But it was expensive.”

“B-but…  She’s…”

“We were going to the market.  In the market, she is too expensive.”

I consoled myself with the reminder that we’d bought other vegetables from her and that this lovely man made the best lasagna I had ever eaten – his pristine morals were of no concern to me. 

The next day, one of much-abused flipflops gave up the ghost.  I was overcharged to fix them (though the man assured me he only gave me that rate because I was his friend) and I decided to shop for another pair – hopefully with a person who had a spine.  But first I had to inspect my dress (made with matching fabric for the women’s retreat at my church – I had been hesitant to take part precisely because of this whole rigmarole, but when Carrottop offered to share her cloth, I couldn’t say no).  Expecting to find a delay, many apologies, and a sleeveless negligee, I gingerly awaited the ‘ironing’ of my final product.  Surprisingly, it looked good!  Small, but good.  As I stepped behind the curtain in the back of the stall, I grimly pushed my sweaty hair off my sweaty face and readied myself for disappointment.

“It doesn’t fit!”

“Adjust yourself!”

“But how--  WAYHAYWHY-are-you-in-my-changing-cocoon?  Why is your hand is in my shirt!  That is my bra strap – I need a lobster dinner before--  HELL-OH, that is my personal body!  Unhand me – we are no longer friends.”

All to the hysterical laughter of the five other women and the Pastor’s wife, who was in the process of levering my body parts to fit the dress. 

“You have to adjust yourself,” she insisted, hoisting up my bra (which came undone, so you can imagine the strength of this heave – I was airborne for a moment). 

“I am incredibly well-adjusted!  Also, there’s nothing to adjust!” I shrieked.

“Breathing is overrated,” chortled the visiting South African who was to lead the women's retreat.  “Just adjust yourself!” 

In India, we adjust the dresses.

Finally, I adjusted, but still insisted that the dress had to be taken out a bit in case I wanted to do something outrageous like turn around or cough.  In the hot madness of that tiny wooden hut, women came and went, all laughing at each other and at the muzungu who had no boobs, didn’t want to show her knees, yelped when the zipper dipped a little too low for comfort (I needed help to get me started, not to strip me in the middle of the shop - that is my personal back – even I haven’t seen it in years!), and didn’t know a speck of Swahili.

I tried to mention that I would wear my dress as a kurti - a long tunic with pants underneath.

“No.  You will not wear pants.”

Very well.  Given the options of shaving my legs or being scared spitless, I suppose I’d choose shaving my legs. 

One regal woman came and stayed for a while to offer drawling, sarcastic commentary in Swahili that had all the women in stitches.  “somethingsomethingAnglais!”  I heard them say breathlessly.  She swivelled to look down her nose at me from the region of my chest. 

“I yam a French ‘ooman,” she sniffed haughtily, to gales of laughter. 

I later had to explain that one of the outfits would have to be adjusted for Carrottop, using my bust and hers as comparison. 

“Beegar zan zees?!” she screeched indignantly, indicating her relatively small assets and prompting another burst of laughter. 

Toward the end of the visit, I noticed that one woman was peering very closely at my head.  She had heretofore been very lively with many cackles, high-five-handshakes, and “I don’t speak Eenglish but I undastand small!” so it was a bit disconcerting.

Is it dandruff?  Lice?  Maybe it’s Maybelline!

After some discussion, I discovered that she was trying to find the line where my weave began.  This prompted all of the five women fondling my hair and murmuring that it was just like cabelo – the weaves of long hair available for purchase – otherwise known as ‘Indian hair.’

It is Indian!  As is the person attached to it!  That is my personal hair!  If you pull and sift through it, will I not bleed?

“I want that,” said my voluptuous tailor.

“If I give it to you, will you give me my dress for free?” I laughed.

She ruminated.  Then, “Yes.”

“A-ha.  Funny.  I must go now.”

Then, with the scent of a thunderstorm in the air, we went to buy shoes on a hill seemingly built for this purpose, and the vendors descended upon us like the eleventh plague, despite my protests that I had boat-like feet.  One woman bent down and began taking off one of my shoes. 

Those belong to me! 

I had been touched too many times that day, and this final caress would have been the breaking of this introverted camel’s back.  However, I’d lost my scrunchie during the day, my hair was starting to absorb water like spaghetti, people were coming by just to view me, and I didn’t want to bend for fear of being trampled.  I would have lifted my leg to untie my shoes and try on others if I didn’t think someone would take it as an invitation for further 'help.'  One man literally just stood behind me with a bin of nail polish, staring at me and mentally willing me to bare my toes so he could have his wicked way with them.  

The vendor bent double to take off my shoes, put my new shoes on, and tie my laces while I stood there like an angry toddler heading to daycare and tried desperately to pretend she didn't exist.  When she was done, she pronounced them beautiful and asked for $20 - the Pastor’s wife worked her down to $4. 

That’s my kind of haggling. 

One woman had taken leave of her senses entirely and was just clapping and chanting, “Show me the money – give me the hair!  Show me the money, give me the hair.” 

This is the new normal.