Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Once we arrive in the village, I shake hands with everybody while the babies scream with
fright at the sight of me, squeezing their mothers' heads so hard it must hurt. While some
of the adults are wearing rags, others have on only penis-gourds or short grass skirts that re-
mind me of ballerina tutus. Several men have fashioned earrings for themselves from scarab
beetles, pieces of bone, or strings of safety pins. They each sport only one earring, and the
lobe of that ear has been stretched until it droops almost to their shoulders. After we've all
shaken hands, a man wearing the lid from a tin ofsardines as an earring asks the girls a ques-
tion in Bimin. Corin answers, and everyone who isn't holding a baby slaps their sides and
falls over with laughter. They laugh with more abandon than any people I've ever met, liter-
ally rolling around on the ground. Not in on the joke, I stand and watch self-consciously, like
a newcomer at a dance.
“Yaieee!” shrieks a teenage boy in English, laughing so hard that tears roll down his
cheeks. “He asked if you are man or woman!”
“What did Corin say?”
“She said you are woman!” He doubles over with mirth again.
After the boy gets control of himself, he tells me his name is Phillip. He explains that the
idea of wearing clothes is still something of a novelty in Memnahop, and since the villagers
have never seen a woman in trousers before, they think I look hilarious. Though up to now
I've felt rather proud of my safari suit, one I designed myself with pockets in all the right
places, even a kangaroo pouch, now I see myself as I probably seem: a giant cross-dressing
marsupial. I smile at the man with the sardine can dangling from his ear. We are both fashion
victims of our cultures.
Thegirlsarrangeformetospendthenightinthehomeofoneoftheirrelatives,awooden-
framed, bamboo-walled house built on stilts. I have to climb a little ladder to enter, but once
inside, I see about 10 people seated on a floor of wooden planks, eating roasted sweet pota-
toes. When I see how everyone helps themselves to the sweet potatoes, which lie in a big
heapnexttothecookingfire,IrealizethatmycustomofpassingtheOreosaroundmusthave
seemed puzzling to my guides.
We eat dinner, and afterward the family starts swapping jokes and yarns in Bimin. Though
I don't understand their words, I like the warmth of the fire and their company. It makes me
want to tell a story, too, so I get my photo book of California out of my backpack and shine
my flashlight on each picture. Every time I turn a page, the father whoops with joy, until I
turn to a photo of a two-story building with a woman in the foreground. Now everyone mur-
murs excitedly.
“They want to know why in your country the people are bigger than the houses,” Phillip
translates.
“She isn't bigger,” I say, wondering how I can explain perspective. “She's only closer to
us than the house.”
