Shape-shifting Nomads

Posted On September 9, 2020

“The ability of an imaginary person or creature to change itself into a different shape or form” This is Cambridge Dictionary’s definition of shape-shifting.  But the problem I have with it is the use of the words “imaginary person”. Nomads and other cross-cultural humans are not imaginary. We’re real people. And we constantly experience ourselves shape-shifting to fit into new environments. For that reason, I like Encyclopedia.com’s definition better: “it’s the alteration in form or substance of any animate object. There seems no limit to the kinds of objects susceptible to such alteration. Examples abound of the shape-shifting of plants, animals, humans, and gods.” Yes! This one! I like this one.

Shape-shifting is an ability almost all humans have. Some call it adaptability, and it’s a skill we have cultivated and mastered as we navigate through cultures, beliefs, and preconceived notions held by people in our home countries or in the new places we encounter on our journey through life. The adaptations could show up in simple manifestations like limiting your elevator small talk routine because you now live in a culture where starting a conversation in an elevator with someone you don’t know, isn’t only strange, it could also make people consider you as having serial killer tendencies.

You could also find yourself simply morphing from just handshaking to air-kissing acquaintances on both cheeks as a form of greeting. Or even more significant changes like completely condemning your left hand during social interactions because the culture you now live in sees the left hand as a specialist, laser-focused on very specific, very important tasks that begin and end in the bathroom. Now all of a sudden you have to shape-shift from a composed, quasi-ambidextrous individual, into a confused adult who needs to set your internal reminders to have your brain turn the left hand switch off during social interactions.

It can be hard at first. Your body gets Cue Conflict. Much like when your senses give mixed signals to your brain because your eye doesn’t see the motion that the liquid in your ears’ vestibular system is sensing, and all of a sudden you’re experiencing motion sickness. In the same way, during cultural cue conflict, your brain wants to do what it’s used to, but your emotional intelligence quotient, strong enough from years of training, is able to steer the brain in a new direction more suiting for the new environment.

On our journey through this nomadic life and experiences in diverse cultures, we have had our personalities and habits reshaped over and over in different countries. Like a chameleon walking across a multi-colored quilt and trying to remain camouflaged on each patch, our unique, funny, and sometimes aggravating encounters have had us morphing over and over again with each new relocation. 

In Kuwait, an Indian colleague once said to me “I never knew black people could be beautiful until I met you.” While she said this with a tender smile that lasted a while as she stared at me, waiting for me to appreciate the ‘compliment’, I stared back in the utmost confusion trying to comprehend the fact that this lady just called an entire group of people, including my family, ugly. I looked inward for help from Little Miss Chief, but I saw her slowly banging her forehead against the walls of my mind. It was even more disturbing because I had no idea how many other people like my Indian colleague existed in this part of the world, people who had never met a black person in real life and whose only image of black people possibly came from watching blackface characters in minstrel shows from the 1900s.

And that was the day Little Miss Chief and I began a fun project of baptizing me as an Ambassador for real black faces, in my little world. Thankfully, there was no training needed, because beauty, style and confidence are infused early from the breast milk of black mothers. And if you care to check, every formula sold particularly in Nigeria, also has swag listed as the main ingredient. So I had Little Miss Chief update my operating system and shape-shifted from normal Halle Berry to Bond-Girl-slow-motion-walking-out-of-the-ocean-Halle Berry! Leaving behind gold dust everywhere I went. 

Well not always gold dust, sometimes I left droplets of sweat. Like this time we went to Kuwait’s largest fabric market where I was used to getting stared at. So I asked Little Miss Chief to flip the switch. But after what felt like hours walking through the market, I found myself mopping sweat off my forehead, needing a cold drink, and slipping out of Halle Berry mode. So I looked inward and saw Little Miss Chief sitting with her head in both hands. “Hey, Lil M.C, we’re fading out, what’s going on in there?” Then she flipped around and said “More like what’s going on out there?! Did you make a wrong turn to hell? What’s with all that heat?!” “C’mon, you know it’s Kuwait, work with me, they’re still staring and we said we’d always make it worth their while, right?” This time she yelled back “I need a break, goddammit! And let’s be real, these fncking temperatures are too high for Halle Berry anyway, and you’re starting to walk funny, too!” “Oh, am I?” Then she side-eyed me and said, “Remember the quote that says A wise woman once said fnck this sh!t and lived happily ever after?” “Yeah.” “Good!”.

Although our shape-shifting settings have sometimes been minor, like Halle Berry Mode, some countries have pounded us out of shape and left more indelible impressions on our personalities. Morocco was one of our favorite places to live, because of the lovely local colleagues we worked with, the great home decor items we acquired, the food, the expansive beauty of the land, and the life-long relationships we’ve made with some genuinely kind Moroccans we still call friends today. But it has also been the country that took the hardest toll on my personality. 

As humans, we have a habit of getting accustomed to everyday encounters to the point of failing to see the gem in each moment. You really don’t know what you’ve got, when you hold the door open for the person behind you, and they make eye contact, even if for a millisecond, and maybe smile as they say “thanks”, until that experience is gone. Or how much humanity is in the act of someone holding the door open as you trail behind them, then making a connecting smile as you hasten your steps and pretend to touch the door in an unspoken gesture of ‘oh you didn’t have to, but thank you for thinking of me’. All of a sudden you’re in a country where most people’s neck muscles work differently. So you execute the same act of holding the door for someone behind you, and they can’t even accord you the twist of a neck, instead they side-eye you, before sticking their nose up in the air and lifting their shoulders higher as they glide past you. Now you’re left with a taste of invisibility as you smell the trail of their strong scent of entitlement.

And when I wasn’t the one at the door first, it seemed like everyone was trying to bash my face in with the door. But the way I saw it, if you wanted to hurt me, at least pay attention to the task, smile, make eye contact, or even side-eye me first. Nope. Nothing. Just straight up bash in the face. No strings attached. However, once I moved from puzzled to curious, I raised my cultural antennas and noticed that not many people held the door open for others. But worse, I observed from many other personal experiences that people with melanin to the degree that I was blessed with it, were viewed in this culture as servants. Particularly if you were African. Oh, the anger when I finally understood the meaning behind the raised noses and shoulders, all the times I held the door open for people behind me or the times I instinctively stepped aside kindly on the sidewalk for people to pass. 

Since I couldn’t change the past, Little Miss Chief told me I still had the power to shape my future, so together we installed Shape-Shifting 2.0. Then we activated Beat Mode, Door Lady. Open the door for yourself, walk in and do not look back – Activate! Niceness – Deactivate! Small talk – Deactivate – activate only if spoken to first! Smile – Deactivate … but Little Miss Chief looked at me with a smile. Then I said “no, I’m serious, deactivate. Apparently smiling at strangers you make eye contact with is a weakling move here” But she kept smiling and said, “girl, that’s a system administrator setting, it can’t be changed by you.” “Oh. Ok, turn down the smile volume from 5.0 to 1.0.”

And with every unpleasant encounter I experienced, I morphed into a tougher, rougher me. Like the times people who came after me, looked at me in a grocery store line and decided that the best spot for them to get in line wasn’t behind me but in front of me. They’d attempt to do this with the arrogance of 2 adult peacocks, but it was with the precision of a black-footed cat that I’d pluck their tail feathers before pointing them to the back of the line.

In cultural shape-shifting, this never-ending task of uprooting old habits, planting new ones, and exhibiting behaviors contrary to your norms can be exhausting. But your consciousness has realized that to navigate certain cultures and maintain your sanity, you must once again create a new identity for yourself. One which gives you the power to not become someone else’s doormat. So when you’re in a culture that doesn’t appreciate niceness in the forms you’re used to, you force yourself to stop being nice like that. You will get all the cue conflicts because that’s not who you are, but the situation or the culture at the time demands you to be a certain way, so you shapeshift to delicately navigate your new environment. 

In Morocco, this was a continuous process. It seemed the shape-shifting gods were training me for some impossible task or testing my growth to see how much of a good student I had become. One day, all I wanted was some refreshing time at the spa. I had searched and settled for this nice spa mainly because their customer service ratings were high. From arrival, they almost had me thinking I was in the wrong place by the way they were looking at me, even though I had called and made an appointment the day before and they had my name on their list. Right in front of me, they shuffled aestheticians until one reluctantly took me in.

5 minutes into the facials, she walked out and I was left unattended for the next 35 minutes, with the steamer trying to make pulled pork of my face. I got out from under it after 20 minutes and sat there for the next 15 wondering if the rapture had taken place while I was indulging in an act of vanity. Then I opened the door to make sure, only to see my attendant sitting with some others doing nothing. Then she had the nerve to twist her forearm, facing her palm upward in a ‘what do you want’ gesture. I was so shocked at her reaction that I started questioning my sanity.

Then she grudgingly came back in with a shallow bucket of water, asking that I lie down and get my pedicure done at the same time as my facials. When I couldn’t figure out how best to have my feet comfortably fit in a bucket, while lying down, without everything ending in a disaster, I politely declined and said I can wait to have my pedicure done in one of the comfortable chairs out in the main spa, after my facials. She left and came back in mumbling something in Dharija (Moroccan Arabic) even though we had been communicating in French prior. After the most botched facials I had ever gotten, I was taken past a number ladies as well as empty, fancy massage pedicure chairs in the pristine women’s section, through a short hallway to a lifeless chair in a dimly lit part of the spa, behind a room divider.

I took a seat in this dying chair and could feel the chair do a happy stretch at the prospect of being used after what must have been a very long time. While I was trying to figure out why we walked past empty, comfortable massage pedicure chairs in the bright side of the spa to this shady corner, or if they were trying to hide me from their other clients who didn’t deserve the disrupting sight of a black woman sharing their space, the attendant was busy dumping salt in the water like she was imagining them to be shards of glass she was trying to stab me with. Then she looked up and asked what color I wanted. I had no idea because this is not how the routine goes. So I asked if I could see some swatches or if she could show me the shelf so I could pick a color. Then she heaved a huge, loud sigh, before blinking a deliberately long blink, the kind you do when you think someone is too stupid to know that you just rolled your eyes behind their lids. Then she got up and left.

It took a high amount of restraint to swallow the words that my brain had just sent to my speech organs. As I started praying every prayer of calm I knew, Little Miss Chief casually strolled into my head, hands locked together behind her back, head down, staring at her walking feet and enjoying the accuracy of each calculated step. Then she said in her calmest voice “what the fnck is wrong with you”? I responded with a help me face saying “I know! I was hoping it wasn’t me making something out of nothing. So I’m glad I’m not the only one who can see the disrespect I’ve endured since I walked in here” then she said “Girl, even Stevie Wonder can see it, too! So why the fnck are you letting this happen!?”

“I don’t know! I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt, maybe”.  She tilted her head downward, looking at me over the top rim of her glasses and said “There’s a limit to that sh!t honey. Don’t forget what your mama told you! People would disrespect you to the extent that you allow them”. “Oh my gosh, you’re so right. I hope it’s not a culture clash though”? This time she crossed both arms over her chest, tilted her head to the right and said “Hm the only ‘clash’ I see here is the contrast between your skin color and everyone else’s in here who’s being treated nicely. Did you see the way other customers were being attended to with respect? Did you see the way they offered them tea on arrival, did you see the way other women were in them big comfortable massage chairs getting their pedicures? Did you see the smile and cheer with which the staff are engaging other customers? Who has smiled at you since you walked in here? They almost didn’t take your a$$ in! Oh and do you see where you’re sitting, they broke every fncking culture code by sitting you here! Girl, quit making undeserved excuses, and know your audience! Anyone who takes your politeness for submission doesn’t deserve it”.

For a brief second, I entertained the fear of the label. Then Little Miss Chief looked at me in disbelief. Eyes narrow. Voice stern. “You either be labeled the angry black woman or the subdued doormat who is also a black woman! Don’t forget, you came in here happy, expecting to be treated like any other customer. But their negative treatment of you has naturally stirred up your anger, and having richly melanated skin doesn’t rob you of your right to express your valid emotions. Anger is an emotion everyone has, so why are you conscious of getting a suppressive label for reacting to the way they have treated you? In fact, I think I need to flip the switch cos this isn’t how we roll”!

By this time, it had been several minutes and my attendant had not returned with the swatches or nail polish options yet. The water my feet were in had turned cold and there was no one around to even ask. So I peeked out the side of the room divider only to discover how undeserving they really thought I was. In this predominantly muslim culture, they had me hidden away behind a partition in! the! men’s! section! The disrespect meter couldn’t go any higher. My anger started to rise from my toes, and then I saw the attendant who was supposed to be bringing me nail polish swatches, washing a man’s head like I didn’t exist. I looked inward one last time, and Little Miss Chief gave a long Nigerian hiss as she flipped my switch!

And that was the day I found out that in a clear case of art imitating life, we all have the same shape-shifting abilities as the incredible hulk, but only some of us get to see our anger grow to the point where our body expands like a balloon filling with air, until we’re so pumped that it hurts to breathe, our vision blurs, then the tears come streaming out like they’re trying to wash the blur away, our clothes start to feel tight, and when I opened my mouth to speak, it was with the voice of 10 cyclops that I arrested the attention of everyone in every corner of that spa, as I began to express what particular size of pieces of sh!t each person who had disrespected me in there was.

So angry, I dumped the French language I had been communicating with because, at this point, English was the only way I could accurately convey all my emotions and constructively lay out all my grievances. Then all of a sudden, my English seemed to have a power that I was previously oblivious to. Because only then did the manager and all the staff begin to apologize. They cajoled, brought me tea, a whole rack of nail polish, wrote off the hefty bill I would have gotten for the crappy service. Started asking if I was an American expat teacher or worked with the American Embassy. You know, those questions are important to them because that’s how they can sift me out of a pile as one of the few blacks deserving of their respect. I hated the fact that they were correct about my nationality because, despite the 360 change in their attitude, I felt guilty about benefiting from a privilege that is not accorded to other African blacks who had no American affiliation.

That experience and others, changed my personality the entire time we lived there. I was more defensive and lived in a constant state of questioning people’s actions towards me. But it also prepared me for other similar challenges I would experience in the coming years in Morocco. And never again did I let it get that far. It hindered my ability to just live freely. Although it had always been my style, in Morocco, I particularly flaunted my African identity at every opportunity, as an extra layer of defiance. And only after I graduated into this new me after I successfully cultivated this Moroccan Personality, did I begin to appreciate the beautiful things the beautiful country had to offer.

In the end, once we left Morocco, I slowly morphed back into my old self. And I was particularly happy that the part of my Moroccan Personality which stayed with me the longest, was the part that represented my best memories there. After we moved to Greece, I still found my Moroccan side air-kissing friends 3 times on their cheeks, as opposed to one or none. It also took me a while to stop responding to “how are you” with “I’m fine, Alhamdulillah”.