Seth’s World View

After going into the local town of Mbarara with my friend Bekah a few times, I ventured off alone to explore the city, and buy, I mean negotiate, a few things. When in a city, I like to be inconspicuous, act like I belong. This is rather difficult when I can walk around the city for two hours without seeing anyone light-skinned. Nor do I see many wearing my Colorado earth-toned clothing. My attempt to walk confidently and decisively wears a little thin after I see the same fruit stand for the 5th time.

All the banks have security guards, you know, to guard the money. I try not to draw their attention, because, well, you never know. As I was walking by one guard, I heard, “Mzungu!” I stopped in my tracks and turned tentively his direction. As I looked, he smiled, and said cheerfully, “How are you?”

Mzungu is the term for a person of European descent, a white person, in some parts of Africa, like Uganda and Rwanda. Since one doesn’t see a mzungu every day, a motorcycle passenger may yell (and did) “mzungu!” to point out the curious sight. It also works well in a crowd to get the attention of a white person, due to the scarcity of mzungus in east Africa. For instance, after I had walked past two girls in Rwanda, they yelled “Mzungu!” and then in an amused tone, “Where are you going?” I guess not every mzungu just takes a walk, or maybe the girls were just flirting.

It’s interesting to be a minority for a month. Not that I’ve never spent any time in big cities. I have. But to be not just in a minority race, but a minority culture. Then, to have a term that identifies me as such. The word mzungu comes from words meaning, “one who wanders aimlessly.” I’m sure someone other than me could better comment on the positive and negative connotations of the word. To me, it gets across the meaning of ‘other.’ While I can understand the usefulness of a word that signifies foreigner, and I don’t expect us all to pretend otherwise, I wonder if we could more often be named, rather than categorized. I don’t mind being called a mzungu, but I much prefer just to be known as Seth.