Tan Lines

I have always loved tan lines. I find farmer’s tans very attractive and why people take off a portion of their bathing suit to get an “even tan” is something I will never understand. Due to the fact that my ancestors largely came from Scotland and England, I am very white and don’t often tan easily. When I do “tan”, unless I have a tan line for proof, people don’t believe me when I tell them that I actually did get darker. Strangers and acquaintances look at me and assume that I simply have always been “that skin tone.”  But them I show them my watch tan line, or my shorts tan, and they look like they’ve seen a ghost. Which honestly, isn’t to far from the truth, the parts of me that never see sun are ghostly white. But it had never occurred to me that Ghanians have never seen tan lines. 

When I showed my Ghanaian friend my tan lines on my feet from my sandals, he thought I had painted myself different colors just to play a joke on him.