The allure of arm hair

Here I am doing an interview in Gatto market. There are about 60 other people immediately outside the frame of this photo. Photo: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps

Some of the most important tools of my work as a Mercy Corps writer are curiosity, observation and conversation. But, sometimes, so much more can be communicated — and learned — by a simple gesture.

Probably the best thing about my job as is being able to travel to some of the world’s remotest places, see villages far off the well-worn path and encounter cultures that, for the most part, remain hidden. I love to sit in huts, examine household artifacts, try foods I could never have imagined and hear stories that might never have been told outside of the family.

I am fascinated by culture and always wanting to learn more about people. But what I rarely realize in my work is that the people I meet are often just as interested to find out things about me.

I don’t think I’m all that interesting. In fact, I try my best to move through the world unnoticed, more than content to make quiet discoveries.

But in some of the far-flung, tiny villages where assignments have taken me, I feel like some kind of magical creature. People crowd around and just look. Children approach with caution. Babies sometimes scream and flee in terror.

“They don’t often see white people in their lives,” said one of our colleagues from Mercy Corps Ethiopia. “Some of them have maybe never seen a white person in their lives. Except for television or movies.”

(And now I’m wondering, if I was to be portrayed in a film, what movie star would play me.)

So, in the midst of my travels here, I’ve come to expect — and appreciate — the looks with which people regard me. How near they want to get to me. That sudden movement inspires surprise. That nearly any silliness I perform, whether accidental or intentional, elicits gales of laughter that quickly cover the village.

But something altogether different happened yesterday at a traditional market near the small village of Gatto.

I think that markets are the best place to get a quick but sweeping sense of the culture you’re visiting. You can see and smell (and taste, if you’re brave) the food that they’re cooking. You can peruse the clothes and crafts being sold. All of the tools, household implements and artifacts are there on display.

That wasn’t the only thing on display, though.

As I moved through the crowd, I felt fingers and hands running over my arms and the back of my neck. It seemed at first like children eager to hold onto me, as sometimes happens in places I’ve visited. But then I noticed that everyone was doing it: kids, young women, men and old ladies. So I stopped to figure out just what was going on.

They were absolutely intrigued by my arm hair. They discussed it at length in their local language, gasped and giggled. Some even poked and traced my freckles.

I was feeling like a pet. Someone even handed me a cup of beans to eat.

Soon it was time to go, and the allure of arm hair only grew stronger as I was walking to the car. People darted up, gave me a stroke and ran back away. And then, as we drove off on our way to the next village and set of interviews, everyone stood there and waved.

My career is all about getting stories from places like this and telling them to folks like you. I wonder if, somewhere tonight, a child or old lady in a far-flung village is telling a story about how the white man’s arms felt.