[island101]

About: Maggie, 33 years old from London, England; she is an anthropologist.

The story:

I’ve been in London for a few weeks after spending three months with a remote tribe in Ethiopia. I’m going to write a paper for a journal to share my experiences, but thought I’d share some stories with you on my blog. The topic for today is cultural nudity.

I grew up in London and was a city girl my whole life. I was very prudish and wasn’t comfortable with my body, or being naked in front of my female classmates at school. Fortunately, there weren’t many occasions where I was expected to be naked in front of others. This is much different from the experiences of the people in the Ethiopian village where I lived for a few months. In that village it is very hot and women are often topless or wearing just a bra on top. Bras are a somewhat new addition as some women just started wearing them in the last ten years.

There isn’t a sense of modesty there and men and women don’t care who see their bits throughout the course of their day. I was a little nervous about this as I settled into village life. In the beginning I was more of a detached observer, and chose to dress how I thought anthropologists should dress, which is to say I wore long sleeve shirts and long pants and boots. I have to admit is was pretty hot there, so when I took a trip to a nearby city I stocked up on t-shirts and shorts which became my new uniform.

My first uncomfortable situation came the day after I arrived when the woman whose family I lived with told me we were going to the river to bathe. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but came prepared with a bikini for this purpose. After we arrived at the river, the women we were with stripped down naked and got in the water. I stripped down to my bikini and joined them. I think they thought I was weird as they were all laughing at me, but they didn’t say anything to me about it. My bikini bath became my daily ritual with the women.

One day I was busy writing and my host said we were going to the river a little earlier today because she had things to do. I said OK and we walked over with some of the other women. I didn’t realize until we arrived that due to the heat I didn’t put on my bikini top and was only wearing my t-shirt on top. I panicked for a few seconds and then realized I was going to have to bathe topless because I didn’t want to make a scene.

The other women had undressed first and after stripping down to my bikini bottoms and t-shirt I removed my shirt. As I walked to the water the women screamed in surprise. They seemed happy to see me with my boobs out. One of the women grabbed my breasts and was feeling them. I wasn’t sure what that was all about until my host told me that the last western woman who stayed with them had implants and they weren’t sure if I had implants. I assured them that my C cups were real. I washed up quickly and got dressed. The men in the village frequently walk by the river and I didn’t want them to walk by when I was topless. I felt uncomfortable when they saw me in my bikini and didn’t want to be seen in less. I dodged a bullet as none of the men walked by. After that experience I made sure to wear my bikini top so I didn’t get caught off-guard.

My second uncomfortable experience was later that night when I was in the hut with my hosts. When we were eating dinner, my female host told her husband about the bathing situation and mentioned that I forgot my top and bathed topless. That led to an intense discussion between them that I believe was about whether or not I had breast implants. Damn that last woman who stayed with them. They probably think all western women have implants. The woman got pretty animated and had me get up and walk over to the man. She pulled up my shirt to my neck and then flipped my bra up so that my boobs popped out. She said “See, I told you…” and then invited him to check for himself. He then did what I would describe as similar to squeezing a stress ball to confirm they were real. Man, that woman with fake boobs must have really made an impression.

My final brush with nudity came on my last day with them. We grew very close and the tribe decided to throw me a big ceremony in my honor that was just like ones they had done for hundreds of years for major occasions. I wasn’t sure what to expect when several of the women took me into one of the huts. My host told me that this ceremony was very old and they followed the old customs for it. Although the tribe wears some clothes these days, they go naked for the ceremony to honor their ancestors’ ways. She told me that although she knew I was modest, she hoped that I could embrace their culture and make an exception for the ceremony.

I was feeling a lot of love and acceptance from the women in the hut and decided I had to break down my wall as an observer of the tribe and become one of them for the night, so I agreed to embrace their culture. The women started to undress to prepare for the ceremony and I joined them. I felt a little resistance when I was down to my panties, but decided to pull them down and bare all to my friends in the hut.

The women noticed right away that it had been months since I shaved down below. The women of this tribe shave their pubic hair completely and said they couldn’t let me walk around looking like that. One of the women had a razor and knelt down in front of me and started to shave me. She was very thorough and hands on and left no part unshaven. While I was being shaved I felt someone behind me spread my butt cheeks. It was the “crazy old woman” of the tribe and she proclaimed to the group that I had an anus just like theirs. She’s probably in her 50s, but has the mind of a younger girl. The other women laughed as if to say “no kidding” as my face turned beet red.

The women in the ceremony aren’t actually totally naked, as they apply a few lines of paint on their bodies and wear a thin rope around their waists. The women painted me a little, although it didn’t cover anything but a few lines on my legs and back and then they put a thin rope around my waist. In this moment I felt bonded with these women.

After we were ready, the ceremony was going to start. We left the hut and reality set in as I felt the sun on my naked body on a field in Africa. My host took me over to where her husband was with some of his friends. I have to admit I felt self-conscious as I wasn’t entirely comfortable being naked in front of the men of the village. I got a lot of attention from them in the beginning, but it died down once the novelty wore off. After that my comfort level increased.

The ceremony was amazing and I cried when it was over and hugged the members my new “family” while totally naked, feeling the warmth of their bodies against mine. It wasn’t sexual in any way, but brought us together as human beings in the world. The next day I traveled to the airport and flew back to London. I plan to write up my experience and then go wherever life leads me next, but I hope to go back to Ethiopia to visit my friends someday.