Ferenge

Sometimes I am overcome by the exhaustion of being a foreigner. Of always being different and new and unusual. In the lands through which we have thus far traveled, there is no hiding our foreignness. Even if we do not speak, our faces and our eyes and our bodies and our skin speak for us. And we follow in the paths that similar shapes and colors have already laid for us; oftentimes we haven’t the option of choosing a different path, it has already been chosen for us.

First impressions are always based upon appearances, it is human nature. It is human nature to utilize past experiences and knowledge and information to make quick assumptions and presumptions about the people inside of those outward appearances. Humans are categorical by nature, it’s how we make quick decisions that historically perhaps meant life or death: dangerous lion / harmless marmot, boiling water / shade under a tree, armed enemy / smiling friend.

But is it innate human nature to put people in categories of “us” versus “them?”

“Us” versus “them” has proven to be a common thread in our travels, partly because we are crossing such great distances and visiting such different lands. And always there are assumptions and presumptions and sometimes blame or solutions placed on “Them.” But how can this language be bypassed? How can you speak about “the people of Ethiopia” without automatically speaking about “them,” for they are a different people that “we are.” Or are they? More and more I find myself amazed by how un-foreign some of our destinations have been. Have I grown numb or non-plussed by the ability to communicate in my language? Or has it to do with the fact that so much of the world is now connected and shares so much of the same general information and habits? Or is the fact that we are all just people? The world is shrinking and I am wide-eyed with the realization that my comprehension of “us” versus “them” is fragmenting. It seems silly. People are the same. People eat, drink, love, feel joy and sorrow and apprehension. People have friends and families and want to lead happy lives. People have memories and dreams.

Yes, food is different, faces are different, customer service is different, climates are different; we can expound for a lifetime on the differences between people and places. But really, can you believe it, they are incredibly superficial differences. Mostly, when you get right down to it, food is the same. Whether using chopsticks, forks, or your right hand to eat, the food is still the same: your belly rumbles when you are hungry, you look at food, you put it in your mouth, you chew, swallow, and the food nourishes your body. What’s so different about that? Sometimes our tongues and eyes seem stronger than our rational thinking.

But who am I to be a critic. I turned down Sheep Brains Masala at a nice Indian restaurant. I tried my hardest (with no guarantee as to my success) to avoid ordering dog on a Chinese menu, and my entire self recoiled at the story of eating juicy chunks of raw meat stripped from an Ethiopian cow moments after it had been slaughtered. But give it enough time in each of those places, and I might be devouring such delicacies with relish.

People change. People assimilate. Cultures are refigured and forced to evolve, for better or worse. Someday, a ferenge will walk down the streets of Bahir Dar and be as invisible as I wish I were. It seems inevitable. And I bet that foreigner will wish that she were a bit more foreign, that she were a bit more special.

But maybe, at that future point, the world will have shrunk so far that “us” and “them” do not even exist as concepts any more.