Karma Warna

In Bahasa Indonesia, warna is color. For every time that I have been politically incorrect with my minority comments simply because I am a minority are slowly coming back to bite me in the ass. Indonesia is the first country I have come to where I did not know the language, the customs, certainly one of my least familiar religions (Islam) and for this and many other reasons is why I was excited to come here. Now that I'm here, and I have been exposed to mostly less conservative populations of Indonesia- I'm slightly afraid for what my future holds when I'm assigned to my permanent site. As a Sri Lankan-American I have a whole different set of challenges and experiences before me than my fellow volunteers who might fit the bill for what Indonesians believe "Americans" should look like. 

Personally, I love my skin color and the ten different shades of brown I am during any given time of the year. I'm coming to learn that the only way that most can make sense of me is by comparing me to Indians, it's only been 2 weeks and I've already had more than 6 random people do some random Bollywood motion accompanied with "dari India" (from India). Wahhhh (Indonesian expression of shock) it has been funny 9.5/10 times that it has happened to me but other times it just seems rude, I feel like my skin should be thicker from ALWAYS getting the same comments from even Americans...

 "what's your nationality?"-American 

"Where are you from?" -Staten Island

"No, but where are your parents from?" -Sri Lanka 

"Ooohh"

I'm pretty sure I sound as American as they come and thankfully without a Staten Island accent. I think more than the "where are you from" dilemma, I struggle with the views of beauty. My Ibu (host mother) calls me her black daughter and I know that she means it in a nice way because there is no doubt that she cares for me and I, her. However, there is a personal struggle that I have to deal with being surrounded in a society that may not accept my skin color as beautiful, and those first impressions are the ones that I'm trying so hard to overcome because I know that in the long run eventually and hopefully they will come to like me. 

I don't get the same amount of attention in any way because they have seen people my skin color before, but seeing someone who is very fair and white is new to them, especially if they are not Indonesian. So when everyone is running to take pictures with other volunteers, not too many Indonesians are concerned about paparazzi shots with this volunteer (me haha). It makes me feel left out in some ways, but the more that I think about it- the happier I am about who I am as a person and the experience that I hoped to have in Peace Corps. 

Peace Corps for me is not about feeling like a celebrity when I visit another country, it never has been. I wanted to do Peace Corps and when I traveled before as well on my own, I did so because I wanted to live like a local not as a foreigner not as someone different than anyone I encountered in country. When I think about it, my experience has become slightly more authentic to me personally, because I don't have to try as hard to convince them that I'm not that different from them. Acceptance is slightly easier and I'm lucky if this is my biggest challenge. 

If anything, my identity is my greatest gift, my ambiguity and how much I have relied on it in the past to set myself apart from everyone else. Here I am, surrounded by a new culture and even with my fellow volunteers and Americans, even for now I am still even slightly ambiguous, an outsider looking in and immersing myself into a world that will soon if it hasn't already become my own.