Back home, I wear nice clothes, dresses, skirts, I wear make- up and have my hair done. Here, after living out of a bag for so long “practical” most definitely prevails over “fashionable” resulting in me dressing in such an a- sexual manner that I could be mistaken for a boy from as close as two feet away. Before departing for this trip I was warned about the dangers of South America, muggings, robberies etc, but no one warned me about the unwanted sex change I would experience.
Girl or boy....You decide!
Looking like shit absolutely all the time can be a little depressing, so both Julie and I have started avoiding mirrors but now and again I accidentally catch a glimpse of the person formally known as myself in one. “Fuck, the state of me” a sighting causes my face to tighten momentarily into an expression of fright and revulsion. “I can’t believe you looked in a mirror”, Julie who has been wearing a bright orange rain coat everyday for the last seven months asks me, “What’s wrong with you? It’s better not to know, not to look.” “It was an accident”, I tell her in a small traumatised voice, “I won’t be doing it again, trust me”.
Unbelievably, we still get wolf whistled at once in a while by what I can only assume are men just freshly released from a long and lonely stretch in an all male prison. After hearing a whistle or a “hello baby” being aimed at us from across the street or a car, I typically turn to Julie, my black rain mac to her orange rain mac and ask “Are they mental? Look at the state of us. We’re dressed like men, are they gay and think we’re men? We’re not even hot men!”
Sometimes we find ourselves walking past clothes shops. “We don’t belong in the likes of there” I tell my travel partner who is on the hunt for some “lesbian type sandles”, i.e . practical and disgusting, black, flat walking sandles with velcrove straps. “There's nothing in there for us, look away!” I say as I clump off in my Frankenstein style hiking boots which surround my feet like boats. Gone are the days when the word “accessories” actually meant what it is intended to, necklaces, handbags, bracelets, shiny and nice things. No, now to me the word means headtorch, Swiss army knife, earplugs and spare toilet roll.
Another reason I hardly recognise myself these days is that I have gained weight, which I only partially accept responsibility for. In certain countries in South America whilst doing this type of traveling, it is virtually impossible to avoid piling on the pounds, unless like Julie you are lucky enough to get a stomach parasite living in the lining of your innards, which only allows food to stay in your body for two seconds before being ejected in ways not suitable for such a high caliber blog as this one (some people have all the luck). Testament to my theory of the difficulties of staying slim in countries such as Peru and Bolivia are the not “hourglass” figures of the local women but “beach ball” figures, which can be seen waddling down streets, sitting eating ice cream and cakes in the many establishments which sell such treats or on the street market stalls trying to sell you chocolate and cheese puffs.
Take the other morning in Peru for example, I decided to try and have a healthy breakfast, so ordered cereal with fruit, yoghurt, brown bread and coffee. I asked for all of this “Sin azucar” (without sugar) and got the usual response in South America to any issue “No problemo”. So, my ¨without sugar¨ breakfast arrived, the fruit drenched in syrup having come straight from a tin, mixed with sugar coated cereal and bright pink, sweet yoghurt, all of this was drizzled with chocolate sauce. The (sweet) brown bread arrived fried and buttered and when my coffee arrived, I was asked if I wanted “two or three sugars” in it.
The jeans I brought with me on this trip are a pair I never wore at home because they were too baggy. Now, they are so tight that I am literally bursting out of them and have had to sew almost an entire new ass in patches at the back. Steps are the enemy of these jeans, lift my leg and rip, out flops my ass.
Another day, another ass patch.
The second reason for the weight gain is that I was so obsessed with exercise before I left for this trip that my body went into some kind of shock when it all stopped. Whereas before I was in the boxing gym five or six times a week for two to three hours a go, had a personal trainer and watched what I ate, now, I stuff my face with sugar, get on long bus journeys (12 – 30 hours), sit in a catatonic state for most of it, arrive at my destination, have a nap and then get up for lunch, moving around as little as possible. Therefore, apart from the sex change, gaining weight is my only complaint about traveling. So until I get home and back to normal life, it´s bigger trousers and more ass patches for me. Pass the sugar please!
There is a glimmer of hope however as we are currently en route to volunteer in an organic farm in Ecuador for a month. The farm is really isolated and you are only able to eat what they cook for you, which is all organic and vegetarian food. Also, we will be working on it and working equals moving, which is good! After the farm, I will bid farewell to Julie for eleven days as I have signed up for a silent meditation retreat. Yes, silent, so help me God. I will not be permitted to speak, read, write or make eye contact with anyone for the entirety of the course. They will only feed me twice a day and let’s face it, it’s not exactly like I can complain if I don’t like the food or want more! My sister reckons I will only last two days on the retreat before freaking out and escaping to find the nearest bar. I however, am determined to stick it out for the entirety and also welcome any attempts at sect like brainwashing that might occur during my time there.
The new me.
Julie may have to come and rescue me after the eleventh day, she’ll find me sitting in the corner of a dimly lit concrete room, devoid of any furniture, me rocking back and forth, perhaps wearing long robes, my head shaved, repeating “feliz aici, feliz aici” (happy here, happy here) over and over. She’ll grab me by the shoulders (now hopefully boney from starvation) and shake me as I continue to stare into space, a vacant, dead look behind my haunting and hungry eyes. She’ll pull a bottle of red wine out of her bag and wave it in my face, I’ll come alive at once! “Right so, lets go!” I’ll stand up and skip out the door, hopefully a slimmer and more feminine version of my current self. I can’t wait!
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