Ants in my Pants (And Other Reasons to Smile)

It was the day of Idul Fitri. This day marks the end of Ramadan where Muslims in Indonesia and around the world celebrated one of their most important holidays. In Indonesia, families travel to their hometowns and break their month long fast together. They also visit their friends and neighbours to apologize for things they have done in the past and may do in the future.

This day also happens to mark the day I had my first real emotional breakdown of culture shock as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

The morning started rather serene. Sure, fireworks, parades of shouting people and drums accompanied by a night-long call to prayer kept me from getting the best of sleeps, but I managed to wake up in a fair disposition. I drank some water, did some yoga, and heated up a hot kettle for my mandi. I tried to relax for the exciting yet predictably stressful day ahead full of dozens of plates of food insisted upon me, hundreds of photos and stares from the entire village pointed in my direction, and... a dress. My co-teacher/sister-in-law took me shopping two weeks ago to buy me a new dress for Indul Fitri. While it is customary for all Indonesian women to buy a new dress for the holiday, anyone who knows me well knows that I abhor shopping for clothes, especially in crowded Indonesian malls (it turns out). This was taken to a whole new level when trying to pick out a dress from a vast selection of what seemed to be every rejected full-bodied bridesmaids dress from the last 40 years. I had no idea there were that many shades of ugly. But I had appreciated the gesture and finally picked a dress to wear. The one which was waiting for me after my mandi, along with a matching hijaab (headscarf) which will, after countless polite corrections to my host family, make me look DIFFERENTLY beautiful, not MORE beautiful. 

So I breathed deeply and let the warm water wash over me finding a foundation of serenity to stand on... just in time for my 70-something year old bapak to enter into the connected mandi stall next to me and proceed to take the loudest most graphic-sounding shits imaginable. Upoon hearing this, I rinsed off as fast as possible and almost slipped in my haste to get out of there before the smell hit me. With nothing but a towel on, I scuttled into the spare bedroom next to mine where my dress was hanging, waiting for me.

I take a moment in my underwear to examine the dress in an attempt to see the beauty in it. I imagined what most Indonesian women must be feeling at this moment, putting on their new and special dress on this most important holiday. 

After I muster up enough acceptance, I put the dress over my head and took a look at myself in the mirror. I was surprised that while my first impression of my appearance seemed rather ho-hum, I still seemed to be getting chills... a tingling sensation engulfed my body. I looked down at my hand to see an ant which I promptly flicked off. Then another, and another... a trail of them... no, a cluster... crawling along my arm, my legs, my neck... an entire colony living inside the dress! I was trapped! Surrounded! After a moment of hesitation at the horror of having to pull this dress back over my head and hair to take it off, I threw it across the room and invented a few new contemporary dance moves. A spastic strip tease as they had made their way into my bra, and yes, my underwear. Yes there were, in fact, ants in my pants.

After a good ten minutes of panicked brushes and yelps, I seemed to have gotten them all. I looked down at my hands to see the smeared carnage on my fingertips. I looked down further to see the undulating puddle of them on the floor that had just violated my body. I had to get out of that room, so after a few violent shakes, I managed to put my underwear and that hellish dress back on my body. I came out shaking and crying and told my sister what had happened. She, too, was surprised at the quantity of ants she had to sweep out of the house.

Can you see the lingering horror in my eyes?

She shook out the hijab as a few more stragglers scattered away and proceeded to wrap and pin it tightly to my head. I looked in the mirror at my fully covered self from head to toe and thought, "If I didn't feel trapped and surrounded by the ants, I feel trapped and surrounded now." It took everything in me to not lash out as my Ibu scooped me the umpteenth wad of rice and room temperature meat sludge on my plate and told me I look even more beautiful and more gamuk (fat). By the time I left the house, it was only 6:30 in the morning.

As we headed for the field for the service, my family made a lot of jokes about my ant incident as I tugged at my slightly too small and increasingly constricting hijaab, still feeling sporadic tingles, phantom ants (or not), throughout my body. 

We arrived at the field to find hundreds of Muslim villagers setting up for prayer. The men in the front, close to the stage, and the women in the back with the small children to watch. I watched bitterly as the men passed in their short sleeved shirts and small hats, with their arms and necks free to move and breathe freely in the increasing temperature of the morning. Simultaneously, I watched further back, as the women started donning themselves with yet an extra layer of garment (in addition to their dress and hijaab) over their bodies and heads to wear for prayer. As we walked through the settling crowd, the stares compiled and collected on me from every direction despite my attempts to shake them off. 

Down in front!

Finding our spot on the grass, we laid out our rugs as more and more stares from women were sticking to me from every direction. This is of course, is a daily occurrence as a Peace Corps volunteer. We inherently have celebrity status in our respective villages. And while I have gotten used to it... for the most part, I have never experienced it in such a concentrated situation and in such a shaken and vulnerable context. I usually handle the stares by smiling, waving or saying hello. On this day however, I couldn't even make eye contact. I felt stuck in the muck of their sticky stares. Luckily, I had two of my nephews to focus on, Firus who was an adorable 4 year old, and Sultan, an even more adorable baby: The only sense of comfort and familiarity I found in the moment. I was asked to keep an eye on them during the prayer, which I was more than happy to do. 

As everyone stood up and the prayer began, I was hoping to find some kind of serenity, whether in the sounds of the call or the motions of the villagers. All I could feel was relief that I was able to stay seated on the ground where the people were no longer able to stare at me. Except for the occasional glances from Firus as he squirmed and tumbled on the rugs in an attempt to entertain himself. And from Sultan, who was deep in his own kind of baby meditation in my arms as I gave him his bottle. I found it was easier to find serenity there with him than with the crowds of devout people standing around me in every direction. He was my eye in this storm.

The best part of my day

Just then, the prayer progressed as a sweeping sea of standing people bent down to the ground with their foreheads to their rugs. But not everyone. All the little children, boys and girls scattered throughout the masses remained standing, squirming, playing and watching as their moms gently pushing them out of their way in order to bow. The sea of people methodically sitting up and bowing down, like the tide. Only the children (and myself) remained.

Stand tall, little man.

After the ceremony we all greeted each other with the phrase, "Mohon Maaf lahir dan bantin." Which literally means "Please forgive (me) outwardly and internally” It seemed a bit odd to have complete strangers to ask for forgiveness from me and vice versa. But it seemed to be in the same vain as the “Peace be with you” in Catholic mass. So I continued in that fashion.

We then migrated deeper into the village to visit some of my hosts extended family. At this point, my attitude was still very stiff from my morning and processing the mass village ceremony I had just experienced… on top of the fact that the hijaab I was wearing was still mildly strangling me. While I understand Muslim women choose to wear this and enjoy it, believing that they are more beautiful with it on, I only felt oppression. That is my gut interpretation of this hot stifling thing surrounding my face. I did not feel free. And I find it hard to imagine what these women around me must be feeling too. 

So I found it especially hard that day to be social and cordial in another language with people I didn’t know. 

Then the daily “makan” conversation I’ve had 3 times every day for the past 5 months started “Erica! Makan! (Eat!)” And usually, I do to appease them whether I’m hungry or not. But slowly, I am learning to put my foot down. “Maaf (Sorry)” I say. “Saya sudah kenyang. (I’m already full). What I wanted to say was, “This special holiday food looks delicious but I am unfortunately disgusted by it because my Ibu insisted I eat a full even more disgusting meal 2 hours ago, which was at 5:30am, by the way when, again, I was also not hungry. And exhausted, and traumatised by a bug encounter that nightmares of insane asylum patients are made of. So BACK OFF! I’m trying my best, but I swear to god, if you tell me to makan one more time, I’m going to go all Orangutan on your ass!" Then my Ibu scooped the biggest mountain of rice onto my bowl after telling her no three times. I just stared at it. Watching as she started to pile more globs of food on top. I stared at the people around me eating the rice and food globs with their hands, their fingers glistening with sauce and saliva decorated with stray grains of rice that seemed to escape their mouths. Once again, I could feel another tickle from an ant on my neck, the Indonesian conversation around me started to sound like white noise, and my hijaab began to constrict the lump growing in my throat. I was about to have a moment. 

I removed myself from the eating circle on the floor and took a seat on the couch next to my brother Osep, who with his almost perfect English and experience working with Westerners has become somewhat of a cultural liason for me at site. I was hoping he could provide some type of comfort or understanding. Unfortunately for me, I was so far on the brink of tears, I could not utter the words to ask for help. Instead, he immediately asked me, as if this was the end of an episode of Barney and Friends, “So... what did you learn today?” My brain flooded with loud aggressive television static. “I….really…don’t…. know.” I said, in as tediously calm a way as possible. “That’s okay.” he said. "Just sit, and watch, and smile.” 

Smile. 

Smile for the camera. Smile and wave at the people. Smile and nod when you don’t understand. Smile and laugh when you are uncomfortable. Smile and be thankful when your Ibu overfeeds you. Smile and apologize when you aren’t fluent in their language after 5 months. Smile when they are all laughing at you. Smile at your sister when she gives you a plate of rice and warm soda after you just vomited your brains out because you have Dengue fever. Smile at your neighbour as she apathetically pokes her crying child’s head wound with her dirty fingers just after a helmet-less motorcycle accident. Smile at your babak as he goes to the backyard to burn the family trash for the day. Smile again just after you heard him take a monster shit 4 feet away from you as he touches you with the hand he just wiped himself with. Smile at yourself in the mirror wearing an ant infested dress and a hijaab which a male dominated religion has convinced women that they should wear because they are more beautiful dressed covered from head to toe in an equatorial climate. Just sit, and watch, and smile…

There are worse places to cry...

Smile as you abruptly excuse yourself from the room to run out into the backyard, sit on a tree root, tearing off your hiijaab (the literal, followed quickly by the figurative) and bawl your fucking eyes out.

When the family runs out to see what’s wrong... don’t smile. Show them you’ve been crying. Show them honesty. And watch…. as they look horribly confused. Listen as they tell you not to cry and that you need rest. And breathe as they awkwardly place you in a close-by house you’ve never been to, in a bedroom you’ve never seen, in a country you now fully realize is much farther away from home than you ever thought before. Watch them smile as they close the door. 

I suppose I knew a day like this would come. Peace Corps warned us about culture shock and depression especially within the first couple months at site. I’m honestly surprised this kind of catharsis didn’t come to me sooner. And after a couple days of digesting and explaining to my brother about what had happened to me that day, I admit, I still seem to be on the verge of crying at any moment. My family is now stepping on eggshells around me, which is also driving me nuts. But with time, I know that will even out. The thing is, in a way, I’m relieved that this finally happened. It means I’m normal. I’m processing this drastic life change in a healthy way. And it made me realize how far I’ve come here and how much more there is to learn.

The second I put on that hijaab, I felt ugly. Like a clown. A joke. Vulnerable and exposed. And horribly embarrassed and ashamed to be dressing up like millions of oppressed women who I feel have an intense cultural pressure to wear this. And to be stared at by hundreds of people that day in this position made me feel like a mockery. Every comment of how much more beautiful I looked in a hijaab only reminded me of how sad it all is. It made me hate where I was. This was my perception.

But at the same time... a better, stronger, braver part of me just... did it anyway.
That part of me knows that beauty is relative. That this culture is more than it looks through my American lens. And that part of me continued to wear the hijaab, say thank you, and fucking smile. 

"Saaay NASI"

The thing is, through it all, my frustration grew not only for this culture, but also simultaneously for myself for being this judgy American walking in on this old religious practice and being all outraged and shit. I could feel myself being short-sighted, but it was too visceral at the time to stop it. Or to know if I should stop it. Or really, how to split the difference.

It’s a hard tightrope to walk, balancing your inner convictions with your cultural flexibility. Where do you pick your battles? What do you really stand for? Where are you being short-sighted? When do you step in and when do you hold back? When should you stand up for what’s right? 

What is truly right? 

After all...

American women may not have to wear a hijaab to be considered beautiful…

They just have to wear a C cup and a size 6.

I guess you could say I have a lot to think about….

But don't we all?