Somewhere along my journey, under the heat of the same sun in different lands, I confused my outside and inside clothes.
Tank top, shorts, boubou.
Just north of the Chihuahuan desert, summer is hot. Heat that burns rather than boils. Air so dry it will literally catch fire. Tank top, shorts, a slather of sunscreen, and don’t forget your water bottle. This is the outside uniform. Boubous are inside clothes for mamas who come from the other side of the Atlantic.
On a coast by the Caribbean Sea, less clothes, more brown skin, and a fine sheen of sweat to remind you where you are. El motoconcho en la calle con el poloche descansando encima de la barriga, dizque pa’ que se fresca. Mami sentada en la galería con su bra, el abanico y toda su dignidad. Dio’ mio ‘ta haciendo calor, hay que echa’se agua.
On the other side of the world, in the desert by the sea, shorts and tanks are inside clothes. Here, we keep our legs covered with a fabric so spacious it creates its own draft. Switching sunscreen for layers, here, protection is physical, not chemical.
At home, in the rain forest and the savanna, we lounge indoors in the still, wet air and curse NEPA. Shorts and tanks, naked babies, and the elders with their old, thin, wrappas. Biko dash me make I buy fuel for gen. An errand calls for a boubou on top, outdoor clothes over indoor clothes, like an armor. Bathroom slippers exchanged for slides, because apparently there’s a difference.
Now I’m lost and confused. In the wrong hemisphere, wearing boubous to check the mail and sweep the house, shorts and tanks to the pharmacy but also for an afternoon nap.
Tank top, shorts, boubou. Outside inside clothes. Do you have a home? Do you have a place? When they ask me “where are you from?” I have the urge to explain my outside inside clothes.
Signed,
N.A.
Signed, N.A. 