Mzungu

Here I am “Mzungu,” that is my African name. And the name of every other white person here. When I walk through the village children jump up and down screaming, “Mzungu! Mzungu!” Even adults will wave cheerily from their stoops, “Hi mzungu! How are you, mzungu?” In fact, the owner of one craft stall saw me and immediately grabbed some tourist t-shirts to show me which say mzungu on them. Like I need to advertise it, my pale skin shouts mzungu from miles away.

The inescapable fact is: I stand out here. I am a minority, a minority with power and privilege, but still. I can’t fade into the background or be anonymous. Even Father Max, who is educated in Europe, pointed this out, only half-jokingly saying when he was looking for Elizabeth and I in Kampala, “I was looking for the white lady.”

And people I haven’t met know who I am. I will meet people for the first time and they already know all about me, which department I work in, how long I’ve been here, that I go walking with the other mzungus, when I last went to the bathroom!

They don’t mean to be rude or make me uncomfortable. But they do.

Other ex-pats who’ve been here longer are more comfortable with the term. I asked an older Irish woman where I should go if I got sick, which hospitals are best, and she said, “You want a mzungu doctor? Go here or here.”

I guess I’ll get used to it.