I’ve already told you all about my huge green suitcase that I arrived in the US with. I’d packed so many things that felt critical to my survival in a foreign country, like the poster of my favorite singer. But what I hadn’t thought of were the practical basics needed for daily life in college: anything from pens and notebooks to bedding and a laundry basket (at that point I actually hadn’t realized that laundry baskets existed in the world, my laundry had just always gone into a plastic bag that wasn’t specifically manufactured for that purpose but continued to serve it with a fair level of success regardless).
When I first moved into my dorm room, my roommate Rachel who had a car and who must have seen the look of concern on my face over not having said laundry basket was kind enough to offer to take me to Walmart on a shopping trip (the concern I had wasn’t really about the laundry basket but it was in fact about all the things I realized I didn’t even know I needed).
A Walmart is overwhelming on the best of days, let alone when you’ve never been to a Walmart nor have ever seen any kind of retail outlet on that scale. When I left Armenia in 2000 the country was only just starting its journey towards westernization: we didn’t have malls yet, there were almost no Western brand retailers. And until then I had been buying all my clothes from hawkers at bazaars or from a secondhand Goodwill store that did have Western fashions but from 10 years prior. My clothes shopping was relegated to one, maybe two, occasions a year, before each school semester, to make sure that I had more than one outfit to wear to school. This was a strategy that would allow me to have something to wear to school while laundry was being done.
And so here I was at Walmart: my first time seeing things like fitted sheets, paper towels, boxed mac-n-cheese, peanut butter. To call the experience daunting would be an understatement. My horror, in no small part, came from the fact that I’d shown up in the US with $200 (I’d say “in my pocket” but really, it was paper clipped, wrapped in a piece of paper and shoved in the lining of my suitcase lest I should lose it – this was the most money I’d ever held in my hands). This was all my family could scrounge up after buying the plane ticket and the suitcase!
But it turned out that the money was sufficient to buy a few necessities, such as a blanket, some personal care items, notebooks, pens and pencils, and some such. I was also the proud owner of my very first box of cereal: Cocoa Puffs. Cereal was on the list of strange American foods I’d never had before (this was an ever expanding list that would soon include things like chocolate milk, pizza, waffle fries, mint chocolate chip ice cream, but at that point I didn’t yet know about all the dubious delicacies I’d been missing out on). Rachel had been insistent I buy the cereal: it would be perfect if I was running late to my morning class and didn’t have time to get to the cafeteria. And it would make the perfect snack since it was pretty much as good as dessert but didn’t count as such (all the chocolate without any of the guilt – the reasoning made perfect sense at the time). I also had to buy some bowls (plastic and neon pink) and a spork for said cereal. The spork was also Rachel’s idea – that way I would have both a spoon and a fork without having to spend money on both – another very American concept that fascinated me at the time (I also have a whole separate spork story worth telling, but for the moment suffice it to say that I find sporks endlessly entertaining).
And yet somehow I did forget something that I would have done better to remember: I didn’t get any tampons (no, the story doesn’t get particularly graphic but if the concept makes you squeamish, maybe this is where you stop reading). Later in the semester I found myself with no money and no tampons, which proved to be quite a conundrum.
There is something to be said about assumptions we make about poverty – we understand that folks may not have food or shelter – but sometimes the reality is more dire still than being dispossessed of physical belongings. Not being able to afford personal care was robbing me of my dignity. Here I was: 16, in a country where I did not have any family or friends, in college and trying to learn Engineering, of all things, in a language that was effortful to understand (and every time I tried to speak it I sounded like I had hot potatoes in my mouth), with no money whatsoever, and no one to ask for it. And with no tampons.
So I did the one thing that made the most sense to me at the time: I stole them from Rachel. In hindsight, I probably should have just asked her for them. But poverty is deeply shameful: how would I tell her that I didn’t have money to buy something as basic as this? At the time, asking felt even worse than stealing, and trust me when I tell you that stealing felt like hell. I’m sure Rachel had realized I was taking them out of her drawer – I don’t see how she wouldn’t have. I don’t know what it was that made her not say anything about it. But she didn’t. And thankfully I was able to get a campus job in a couple of months and earn enough money to be able to afford my own tampons. And Cocoa Puffs.
P.S. If this story made you see the hidden shame and indignity that poverty causes to female-bodied folks in particular, please consider donating to the Alliance for Period Supplies who help provide access to menstrual health products. Or just drop off a couple of boxes of pads or tampons at your local shelter. These are more needed than you know.
Packing List for Immigration 