Global Girl

This book is pretty funny, and I would recommend it for a few laughs after being in Rio. Be catious about using it as a guide, as you might end up just making a fool of yourself.

For someone who would like to believe that there is such a thing as a global citizen, feeling like a gringo really puts a down on one’s day. A pet peeve of mine is to feel like a tourist, and I believe that other tourists probably would agree with me on that one. I hope this post doesn’t seem superficial, but feeling like a foreigner when you are in a foreign country is something that happens to all of us, and we all have our ways of dealing with it. Many turn to subconsciously playing the game of the unspoken contest of who is less gringo, and I can admit that sometimes I’m guilty of this too.

This post is just for fun and to release some rather superficial but annoying feelings that I have bottled up because of my shame for having this itch of hating to be a gringa. But I believe that other people also feel this way sometimes, and so I am going to go ahead and get the discussion out in the open so we as gringos can accept our eternal gringodom and get on with our lives. Enjoy:

Arriving at the Galeão airport is always an amusement. Brazilians and visitors alike drag themselves off of the plane from a night of cramped sleeping and bad airplane food, (generally dried up gnocchi overcooked chicken and slimy greens). There are some Brazilians returning to their homes with as many bags as they can possibly squeeze onto the little cart, boxes of Johnny Walker black or red, and bags from Disney world. These Brazilians generally seem to be the majority, but this is purely due to the sheer amount of luggage. I would say that generally there are more foreigners coming to take advantage of the beach, caipirinhas, and samba.

Its weird how almost every flight has a similar mix of foreigners. (This excludes the time that I got stuck in a plane with a group of fifty Japanese tourists who didn’t speak English. I was squashed in the middle seat in the aisle next to two rather large Japanese men who have the keen ability to sleep like a rock in the sitting up position. Since they didn’t speak English I was stuck the whole time sitting without being able to go to the bathroom just because I didn’t know the words “Excuse me, I need to use the restroom” in Japanese.)
Some girls are leaving the plane wearing their cutsie Victoria Secret Pink sweat-suit outfit, if only the knew that matching sweat-suit is NOT in style in Brazil and they just look like they are walking around in their pajamas. Other girls seem to be  dressed as if they are ready to plunge in the ocean wearing what they believe to be Brazilian beach attire, usually already in their Havaianas with little Brazilian flags on the straps. They are not aware however that Brazilian beach attire is an art. The beach is one of the most important places to show off your sense of style and beauty in Brazil. Bath towels, pants of any sort, Tevas, ratty shirts, soffee shorts, large bathing suits, topless bikinis (we are not in Europe) are not included in this refined sense of Leblon/Ipanema Brazilian beauty fashion. Something of which I know that I still haven’t perfected the art.

I have probably taken part in both of these categories of gringas at one point or another, but I hate to admit it to you.  See, my perceptions (or horrible pre-judgments if I want to be honest with myself) come from an annoying itch inside that likes to feel less gringa than others, and I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. There is definitely an unspoken contest among travelers in Rio de Janeiro of who can assimilate the most into the culture. Who can make the most Brazilian friends. Who can speak the best Portuguese. Who can intermix and open their mouth without a Brazilian asking, “Where are you from?”

There is a Brazilian girl Camila, (she has a really interesting blog in Portuguese, you can read it here), whom I became friends with through our  seminar class we had together. Camila is a friend that is getting her Phd at Tulane, and so we had grown a friendship through shared stories about our lives in each others countries and our experiences being a foreigner. I told Camila one time, “Sometimes I hate being in Brazil because I hate to be a Gringa! I don’t want to be a gringa!”  Knowing that she had also experienced a “gringo” like feeling in the US, I was kind of expecting her to say something consoling like, “oh don’t worry, you aren’t like those other gringas.”  But instead she looked at me frankly and stated, “Amanda, you are always going to be a gringa. There is nothing you can do about that.”

I have to remind myself this all the time. When I can’t get out a word right and I’m embarrassed. When I am inclined to point out gringos on the street and I wonder whether other Brazilians can tell that I am a gringa.  I think the only thing that we travelers/ex-pats/or quase-global citizens can do is support each other instead of trying to compete with each other. I am going to try and live out that prescription. After all, as Camila tells me, there is nothing I can do, I will always be a gringa–that is until the world really has global citizens.

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