DRESSING SHABBILY IN PEACE CORPS! I FEEL SO FREE! AND SO WHITE?
Peace Corps volunteers, generally speaking, experience aesthetic freedom abroad. We wander around the host countries dressed like shit. We shouldn't. It is considered disrespectful and we just don't realize it. But we do. We feel so free without the pressures of American appearance. We don't have movies, friends, magazines and billboards constantly telling us we need to look this way or that way. Another significant reason we look so shabby is that we are adjusting to doing laundry by hand and to shopping from second hand piles of clothes. This is really a factor. (Most) Malagasy people know how to frip shop and do laundry by hand. Indeed, washing clothes by hand is part of our technical training. I was a very slow learner. It is harder than it sounds. Finally, it must be said, having white skin connotes status in many (all?) countries and we rely on that (whether we admit it or realize it) to counteract our pathetic appearance--if we happen to be white. So like most volunteers, I was pretty shabby looking in Peace Corps. It is all true. The freedom from feeling judged by the US culture aesthetically. The disorientation of buying and cleaning clothes. The reliance on skin color to communicate professionalism (wow).
Peace Corps volunteers, generally speaking, experience aesthetic freedom abroad. We wander around the host countries dressed like shit. We shouldn't. It is considered disrespectful and we just don't realize it. But we do. We feel so free without the pressures of American appearance. We don't have movies, friends, magazines and billboards constantly telling us we need to look this way or that way. Another significant reason we look so shabby is that we are adjusting to doing laundry by hand and to shopping from second hand piles of clothes. This is really a factor. (Most) Malagasy people know how to frip shop and do laundry by hand. Indeed, washing clothes by hand is part of our technical training. I was a very slow learner. It is harder than it sounds. Finally, it must be said, having white skin connotes status in many (all?) countries and we rely on that (whether we admit it or realize it) to counteract our pathetic appearance--if we happen to be white. So like most volunteers, I was pretty shabby looking in Peace Corps. It is all true. The freedom from feeling judged by the US culture aesthetically. The disorientation of buying and cleaning clothes. The reliance on skin color to communicate professionalism (wow).
MINIMALIST LEANINGS IN THE US! WAIT, BUT ARE THESE PANTS A GOOD REPRESENTATION OF WHO I AM?
When I first returned to the US, and to this day, I have simply asked friends if they have extra clothes they want to get rid of. Of course, in the United States, everyone has a garbage bag or two of clothes they don't care about. I have been wearing these rejects and feeling like I look great. My clothes are newish, freshly laundered and so on. I marveled at the laundry machine. It has been two months since I got back. My perception of my garbage bag wardrobe is slowly changing. I am starting to think about how the clothes represent who I am. "Is this shirt me?" No. It is a shirt. You are you. Material goods will never represent who I am nor do they need to. They simply need to function.
When I first returned to the US, and to this day, I have simply asked friends if they have extra clothes they want to get rid of. Of course, in the United States, everyone has a garbage bag or two of clothes they don't care about. I have been wearing these rejects and feeling like I look great. My clothes are newish, freshly laundered and so on. I marveled at the laundry machine. It has been two months since I got back. My perception of my garbage bag wardrobe is slowly changing. I am starting to think about how the clothes represent who I am. "Is this shirt me?" No. It is a shirt. You are you. Material goods will never represent who I am nor do they need to. They simply need to function.
WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
It says something that I want to dress more nicely in the United States than in Madagascar. I certainly think the United States culture prizes physical appearance and encourages the spending of money on appearance. This pressure affects all of us. But I also must wonder, who is it that I want to impress here that I didn't want to impress in Madagascar? I wonder, was it a latent show of disrespect that I dressed so shabbily? I don't like thinking that but not liking it doesn't make it false. Even more so, and certainly true, it was a conscious understanding of how much power my skin held. I didn't have to dress to impress. I was white. Being white connoted wealth, education and intelligence. It also connoted snobbery, arrogance and pompousness. Either way--it was nonstop specialty treatment. I am still white but it feels more secondary now. In Madagascar I felt white all day long. Even in my dreams I knew I was white. I relied on the status my skin color. I used it. I totally did. It is rude to use your skin color as an accessory.
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