The Whole "Networking" Thing

Some days are moche.  Other days are exellente. As I last wrote my stage, or internship, with Medecins Sans Frontieres isn’t going ideally.  But this Wedenesday last, I got lucky. 

So I’ve been trying this new thing called “networking”.  I don’t really like people too much so for years this is something I’ve been trying to avoid.  Under the scrutinizing pressure of my awesome German-American boyfriend, who now has more friends in Geneva after living there for two weeks than I probably will throughout the duration of this lifetime—and the next—I gave the whole networking trend a try. 

I contacted the GWU alumni network in Paris and three weeks later they contact me back saying that they’re just starting up but happy to help me.  Someone actually volunteered to meet with me.  He did his masters at GWU and now works at the Paris branch of Deloitte.  We have breakfast.  It’s great.  He’s possibly the nicest person I’ve ever met.  We talk about how Americans are like peaches—soft on the outside, but on the inside quite firm—and how Parisians are like pineapples—kind of solid on the inside, but on the outside, tough and prickly.  Our conversation ends with him telling me that he’ll look around and see if he can find me any work, or at the very least, any interesting contacts that can maybe help me once I graduate in May because as most newly graduates and soon-to-bes, I’m freaking the shit out. 

I had a great time, fantastic conversation, and a croissant that was good and overpriced and wasn’t expecting much.  But then I get a call less than five hours later from a Mister Man from Deloitte.  He says he thinks he might have found me a job.  I’m ecstatic.  What is it?  It’s too good to be true.  He puts me in contact with a woman from the OECD, the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development, who wants me to travel to Tunisia and then perhaps Senegal and interpret English/French for her. 

I tell her I can do it.  I know I can.  It’s going to be hard as hell but I know that this is a worthwhile challenge.  And since being in Paris, a challenge is something I’ve lacked.  Already familiar with the language, already a semi-competent grown up and just winding down my travels, coming from places that I find significantly more culturally different, Paris has been solid, but unexciting.  So ready or not, Tunisia, Senegal—interpreting economic issues—I’m diving in.   

Oh Where, Oh Where is my Stagiaire?

So being an International Affairs major has its perks and pitfalls. I can pretty much study whatever I want: security, development, the Middle East, Turkish, Russian, Chinese, diplomacy, history, the US and every other government.  I can study abroad three semesters with no problem.  I can afford to take more art classes than an art major without stressing.  I can learn from the best and the brightest professors that GWU has to offer. 

But.

Being an International Affairs major also means that I’m one of those lucky kids who isn’t studying to become A THING.  Premed goes to doctor, prelaw goes to lawyer, engineering goes to engineer—even art history kids have a specialization!  Now I happen to have a specialization in an area of the world I’m not currently in, so I was curious to see what kind of internship, or stage, my study abroad program would find for the only Middle East Studies major.  Actually curious isn’t the right word.  The right words were naïve and optimistic. 

So they got me an internship at Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders.  Sounds nice, right?  Well what sounds cool about MSF to me is the international component but without actually being a doctor, and without actually being in a developing or underdeveloped country, what’s left…but paperwork. 

I have never seen an office so cluttered with papers.  It is a truly an archaic system of documentation.  The pink sheets get stapled to the white sheets, the blue sheets go into les commandes, or the packages that are sent overseas with doctors, the yellow sheets go into one of nearly a thousand big, ugly red or blue binders.  After half an hour in that place I feel that I’m going colorblind and more than that I feel like I’m trapped in a prison made of paper. 

The people that work there are nice and don’t seem to mind papercuts, those irey splinters, but most are volunteers.  The few salaried employees started as doctors in the field and have been there for no less than ten to fifteen years.  These are the ones that sit there patiently and watch as I staple the yellow sheets to the pink sheets and staple the blue sheets to my forehead.  So in this one case International Affairs/Middle East Studies major goest to librarian, and I’m the sucker who signed up for it. 

Being Brown Abroad

Its hard to know where to start. If you have brown skin and have been just about anywhere you will know why. Its different for everyone abroad and for everyone abroad the interactions you have may be better or worse depending on those taboo topics like your gender, the gender of the people you date, your religion, the color of your hair, skin, and eyes.

I have brown skin, brown hair, and brown eyes. A monochromatic depiction of a half white half black American. And in America this has its pros and cons. I am somehow both integrated by both white people and black and yet fully accepted by neither. I am targeted by the extreme stereotypes of both races yet am a prime candidate to overcome them and prove the agent group wrong. At face value, I have a seemingly ambiguous ethnic origin and this makes me both exotic but also foreign. The list goes on. But the fact is that these are realities I have recognized and learned to accept over the course of twenty years. These are the realities that I have come to understand and what I understand is this: I look different. And I'm okay with that.

Being abroad every individual regardless of background must re-confront themselves, their thoughts, their opinions, their beliefs. I have spent nearly a third of my life abroad, and so assumed that after five years of childhood in Mali, a year of living in Egypt during the Revolution, three months in Jordan, back to Cairo and topped off by a short summer in Germany, Paris would be a cultural-adaptivity joyride--a breeze. This has not been the case.

An evening spent with an unfortunate group has strained the limits of my tolerance and has me edging towards an unfair prejudice against French people. I hope to let it pass, in the same way that I hope others forgive and forget their perceptions of Americans when they meet me. However, the inexcusable conversation, in brief:

My friend and I are standing outside of a bar in a large group of French kids, about our age. We came with three boys. They introduce us to their friends. One of them asks me what nationality I am. I respond American. He looks at me as if I have just slapped him in the face and asks again. Again, I answer American, this time adding that if he would like to know my ethnic background, he should ask. He doesn't seem to understand the difference between the two, despite speaking perfect, unaccented American, but to humor me asks my ethnic background. I say half black half white. Again, I receive another stare of disapproval and disbelief. He tells me that I cannot possibly be American. I tell him that both of my parents are American. He calls me a liar. My friend attempts to divert the conversation but at this point all seven sets of eyes are on me. The boy asks where my parents parents are from and then their parents. All American, I respond. His friend steps in and says frankly, "She's American. Half n***er." I tell him I don't use that word and that in America a lot of people would find it offensive, especially when used by someone they don't know. The conversation devolves to him explaining that he is one quarter black American and he lived for 2 months in Chicago, so its OK. I tell him that's fine if he wants to use it in his own friend group but that I find it offensive, so he shouldn't use it around me. I then am attacked on all fronts by 5 white French boys and one one-quarter black American, three-quarter white French boy all who attempt to convince me that I am wrong and they are right and that I shouldn't find the word offensive. This lasted all of five minutes, because at that point I realized I was arguing with walls, and dumb ones at that. So I leave.

I understand that these experiences can happen anywhere, and that being abroad I should expect to encounter these types of things. I just can't help but wonder how and why a group of well educated, young, progressive French people can't seem to exhibit any type of tolerance whatsoever, nor form any semblance of a coherent argument in the presence of disagreement. This is the most thick-skulled and rude I've ever seen, and I have been places opened my eyes and really truly seen.

And I'm disappointed. And will try to be optimistic. Tomorrow. But in all of the places I've been and all of the people I've met and gotten to know and enjoyed knowing, I am content for now to say that I like French people the least.





Sincerely,

Bitter, Brown, and Abroad



P.S. The following is me being brown and abroad this summer. And loving it.

Paris

Berlin

Dahab

Cairo

Seattle