Nomadic Chic: Traveling While Black

I spent two of the most amazing years of my (less than 30-year) life in Africa.  Being in Congo as a diplomat was life changing – both personally and professionally.  As a first-timer actually living abroad, most of my entries will be about this experience, through the eyes of a young black American woman - V.

I’m more than a young, black American woman, however – I’m a sister, daughter, friend, girlfriend, soul-cycler, degree-holder, movie-lover, brunch-goer, self-proclaimed wine connoisseur, and the list goes on.  But my time in Congo as a young black American woman painted my experience.  As #millennials, we are looking beyond our boarders for adventure, we’ve built a repertoire of similar experiences and struggles; similar stories to tell; and insightful advice to pass along.  With that, I bring you the first of many entries about living abroad – hopefully with a bit of entertainment and perspective.

For me, I’ll begin with what may be a revelation to some, or a familiar feeling to others: Being a black foreigner in Africa can be full of surprises.  Growing up as a “minority” in America, you get used to…being a minority.  In Africa (surprise, surprise), black people are everywhere.  Finally, I wasn’t in the minority.  (Some of my white colleagues had a hard time with that, since they were used to being in the majority.  I may delve a bit into this in a later post.) Anywho…I thought Africa would be cool.  The country was run by people who looked like me.  Everyone looked like me!  We share the same tendencies, come to find out: Getting overly dressed up for any occasion, arriving late for those occasions, dancing on beat to anything, etc etc.  

I did many double-takes while at the market or at the club, thinking I saw a distant relative 6,000 miles away from home.  I made many friends who felt close to me, especially with our apparent shared struggles in unequal societies or shared love for both Davido and Drake.  As much as I loved hearing “my sista, my sista” (really, “ma sœur, ma sœur” in Congo), and being able to hang out without sticking out in the crowd, I eventually wanted to feel different. 

It started during an orphanage visit my first week in town.  My two colleagues and I walked in together and a wave of five- to eight-year-olds ran up to us wearing no shoes and big smiles.  Well, they ran up to them actually.  I stood there, and wondered WHAT was going on.  Didn’t they know that I can do a fierce kid spin and can safely toss them in the air and catch them?!  Why didn’t they run up to me?! A few kids were curious about who I was, but I could tell that they were used to white ladies coming to play with them, not young women whose skin was the same as theirs.  Needless to say, my kid spin won them over in the end.  And it was then, with this natural response from young kids, that I realized how I’d be perceived in Congo.

For example:  High-ranking officials assumed I was my boss’s translator at a meeting, as opposed to a fellow diplomat. My staff felt the need to introduce me explicitly as their “boss,” to avoid confusion in the audience.  One of them even told me, “You know, Vanessa, they probably think you’re here as my girlfriend…” The nail lady at the salon completely changed her disposition and offered good customer service ONLY when I started speaking English with my friend.  And, time-and-time again, I was the last to receive a menu, drink, or meal at dinner when out with my lighter-hued friends.  

As time passed, I realized that I just wanted Congolese to remove the lens of skin color from their perspective of who ought to be valued or held in higher regard.  Don’t assume that the young black girl is the translator as opposed to the number-two in a meeting, or the girlfriend as opposed to the boss, or the dinner guest as opposed to the host.  Maybe more people needed to see more women of color traveling abroad and as bosses to think twice before making assumption.  I realized that these far-too-frequent experiences of automatic bias were teaching moments. I realized that I was showing more people that young women of color are capable of just as much as their white counterparts.  And I realize that the more we travel, the more chances we have to do just that.  Hopefully my fellow Nomadic Chics can help me along the way.