On being blonde in Cajamarca

In the city of Cajamarca, people are fairly used to having foreigners around. Besides the occasional "Hola bonita / gringuita / rubita / guapa", I am left in peace. On the countryside, however, gringos are conspicuous by their absence and I feel like a living tourist attraction. People keep asking me to pose for pictures. “¡Una fotito, por favor, señorita! In front of the school building, please! With my little Carlitos. And another one with my daughters! And one more with all the kids!” Apparently seeing a gringa in Cushunga, Jamcate or San Juan de Chamis is such a once-in-a-lifetime occasion that it is worth saving on film. Anaїs tells me to start charging one sol per picture, but I haven’t come to such lengths yet.

Middle school pupils are old and well-behaved enough not to ask stupid questions. Preschool and primary school children, on the other hand, have not yet learnt to conceal their curiosity. At first they are intimidated by my presence. When I smile at them, they liven up and grow braver. After opening the conversation with some politically correct small talk about sisters and brothers, for example, the boldest ones dare to ask: "Why is your hair white?" I explain that I’m from a country far away where most people have hair like mine. What follows is a flood of questions: “Has your hair always been that way? Does it come off? Did you colour it? Is it white because you are old?” The most audacious ones stretch out to touch my hair.

The last time I was at Jamcate (28 km outside Cajamarca), the sun shone so brightly at noon that I took off my sweater, and that caused an uproar. “Your skin is so WHITE!” The kids were so excited they could barely stay still. A dozen gathered around me, and a hoard of tiny hands reached out for my bare arms. “It feels just like normal skin!” announced one of the youngest girls triumphantly.

The children up in the countryside do not have television or magazines. They practically never visit Cajamarca, and not even the marvellous world of advertising has reached its long grip to the remote mountain villages, since their inhabitants lack purchasing power. Ads, of course, have nothing to do with reality. A beautiful, blue-eyed woman shakes her blonde locks in a Peruvian shampoo ad. Another smiling, blonde girl advertises mineral water. That is ridiculous considering that next to all Peruvians are dark-haired and brown-eyed.

Peru is a racist country. The whiter your skin, the higher the chances are that you can read and write, that you do not go to bed hungry, and that you get your voice heard in issues that concern your daily life. In colonial times, one could buy “white skin” and so climb up the social ladder.

It amuses me that 7-year-old girls pull my hair to see if the wig comes off. On the contrary, it makes me angry that they ask me to switch eyes or hair with them because they want white hair and green eyes, too. I try to tell them that their own long, shiny black hair is beautiful, but they don’t look too convinced. Colour shouldn’t matter; it is unfair and frustrating that it does.