Lesson 4: Hello, My Name is Mzungu

Tomorrow marks my one-month anniversary of living in Uganda!  I’m happy to report that I love it here, although some parts are more enjoyable than others.  It’s pretty weird being one of the few white people, or mzungu, in the country.  To give you an idea of what it’s like, think about walking from your home to the downtown part of your city.  Imagine walking up and down all the streets.  If you’re lucky, you may see two or three other white people.  Maybe.  On the four hour drive from Kampala to Mbale, I saw one other white person.  It’s very different from anywhere that I’ve been before!

Because we mzungu are so few and far between, we get stared at a lot.  Or, if you go to the market, you receive a lot of attention from people selling things.  Most of the time, as you’re weaving your way through traffic and people’s wares, you’ll be accosted by frequent calls of “Mzungu! Mzungu!” to buy anything from shoes, to pots and pans, to padlocks.  Once, as Jennifer and I were making our way through the market, people guessed that we were from the US, from China, and from India.  What makes this even funnier is that Jennifer is blonde, has freckles, and super curly hair. China? I think not.

Mzungu are shown a great deal of respect here, which sometimes makes us Westerners feel pretty uncomfortable.  For example, during our visits to church out at the village, we are shown the place of honor, right at the front of the church where everyone can see our shining, bright-white faces.  I attended a funeral in the Bududa district with a friend as a cultural experience, and we were shown the places of honor- meaning the older women who were already sitting down near the casket stood up to give us their seat.  Women will also greet you by kneeling to shake your hand.  It’s a very humbling experience to be shown such a great deal of respect by women so much older and wiser than me, simply because I am white.  They live a life so different than mine, and so much more difficult.  I should be getting on my knees to greet them!

Greetings are a huge deal here!  To not greet someone is considered very rude.  The longer you spend greeting someone, the more polite you’re considered to be.  Asking them how they are is the bare minimum; asking about their health, their family, etc., is a nicer greeting.  Handshakes are important; two-handed greetings are more respectful than one-handed greetings.  For example, placing your left hand on your right arm as you shake someone’s hand is a good way to show respect, and waving hello with both hands is friendlier than waving with only one.  I’m getting used to coming to Sunday morning Bible class and shaking hands with everyone in the building!  Not exactly how we do things in the States, but I’m becoming a fan! It’s definitely helped me learn a lot of names.

Church service is similar to that in the states, but in more languages.  We sing songs in English, Swahili, Luganda, Lugisu, and I think in Atesso as well.  I don’t really understand a whole lot yet, but here is one of the songs we sing in Swahili:

Hakuna mungu kama wewe (3x)

Ee we mungu wangu

Na sema, “Asante!” (3x)

Ee we mungu wangu

Translation:

There is no God like you

Yes, you my God

I say, “Thank you!”

Yes, you my God

            Even the English here is different.  Ugandan English actually has its own Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugandan_English).  Some important ones to remember: when giving directions, “turning” is replaced by “branching.”  Also, the word “trousers” is used instead of “pants,” as the latter means underwear.  This made for a hilariously awkward conversation between Jeanie and the tailor. Jeanie asked that her tunic be made a bit short, as she was going to wear pants under it.

            Of course, there are other things that just aren’t quite the same as they are back home.  For one thing, our power likes to go on and off as it pleases.  Our longest power outage since my arrival has been three days, enough to spoil all the food in our fridge and to induce the necessity of a few cold showers.  It’s not so bad though; we have dinner by candlelight and play Canasta.  The thing that drives me crazy about not having power is temporarily losing the ability to look stuff up online, like how much potassium is in a watermelon, the frequencies in Hertz of various music notes, or how to play the cello.

            Once the power came back on, I was able to access the necessary resources to teach science today.  We talked about the changing of the seasons, the tilt of the earth as it orbits the sun…and Groundhog Day!  Only two of the five kids in my science class had heard of Groundhog Day, which I could hardly believe.  We got out the globe, found the approximate location of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania and talked about how Phil would be crawling out of his hole in about four more hours (we’re ahead of Eastern time by 8 hours) and looking around for his shadow.  Then we took great care in creating our groundhog masks to celebrate this wonderful holiday.

A very Happy Groundhog Day from all of us at MMS!