Un Poco Mas Gordo...

I got my haircut yesterday evening, and it’s really short: soldier short, you might say. Although I’m serving in a church with pacifist roots, I definitely look like a military man with my nearly buzzed-off head. If I had been a member of the ACCA church a century ago, they probably wouldn’t have accepted me with my haircut’s connotations, along with those of my great-grandfather’s generation and their Eastern European moustaches.

Whenever I get my hair cut so drastically, people always feel free to tell me how they feel about it. In the States, there’s been a long-standing debate amongst my lady friends as to whether I look better with my hair really long or with my hair really short. I’ve always taken their opinions seriously, but for laziness I’ve always alternated between one extreme or the other (except for when my hair is still growing and I’m just right in the middle, that is). I always disappoint some when I cut my hair and please others when I do, so I’ve learned the past few years that I can’t please everyone.

Usually folks, regardless of whether they like me looking more like the Heath Ledger in A Knight’s Tale or the Heath Ledger in Ten Things I Hate about You, react with surprise to my new-do and tell me how much different I look after the change. Most of the time I receive comments about how much younger I look without my not-so-nicely-trimmed sideburns. One government professor told me last year I looked like a sixteen year old without my shag. Every time that people do remind me that I got my “hair cut,” though, I correct them and tell them that “no, I didn’t get my hair cut, I got my hairs cut.” I think my dad’s the one who taught me the joke, so he always says “hairs cut” the first time. The joke, unfortunately, doesn’t translate into Spanish. I’ve tried.
Anyways, this morning at school I got a comment about my haircut from a Paraguayan that I’d never heard before. Pastor Baldo, the school chaplain, told me that he liked my haircut, smiled, and then said it made me look “un poco mas gordo,” a little more fat. Now, I admire and respect Pastor Baldo a lot—he’s the shepherd for a congregation of extremely poor Christians in a terrible part of Asuncion, and has no doubt seen and perhaps known as much poverty as Mother Theresa-- but we’re not really that close. It wasn’t like my brother or best friend joking and saying that my haircut made me look fat (which I’d expect them to do): no, it was like a respected pastor saying to me that I looked chubbier without my longer hair.

I’d always suspected shorter hair made my face look rounder, but that’s not my point. The point is that here in Paraguay, it’s perfectly normal for people—for pastors—to come right out and say what they think about your or mine or his or her appearance. There aren’t so many taboos about hurting people’s feelings, especially in regards to body image. When describing and distinguishing people one from another, for example, it’s common to call them by their physical characteristics. On the soccer field, the chubby-kid-of-whom-know-one-knows-his-real-name is simply called “el gordo,” the masculine fatty one. When visitors come from other countries, they often get nicknames too, like “la flaca,” the skinny feminine one, or “la gordita,” the feminine diminutive fatty one. There’s a restaurant downtown, which undoubtedly would cause much trouble in the U.S., called “La Negrita,” the feminine diminutive black one, with an antebellum cartoon of a black woman for its Ronald McDonald. Here, however, the restaurant’s name bothers now one. People are known by their physical characteristics, and that’s just that. Pastor Baldo thus meant no harm in saying I looked fatter, because that’s just what it seemed like to him and that’s just what he wanted to say.

So, if you ever visit Paraguay and someone tells you that you’re skinny or fat or short or tall or black or white, don’t take it personally—it’s a cultural thing. It’s different, for sure, but it’s helped me not to take myself or my body image too seriously. I’ve been maintaining the same weight and skin-color since I’ve gotten here, but there’s always plenty of people to tell me I’m getting skinnier or fatter or lighter or darker. In the end, I reckon people can tell me their opinions and it doesn’t really matter all that much to me. I’m just gonna keep on living like I do, growing out my hair and then cutting it back like I do, and doing my best not to let anyone else get in the way.