So, my sister recommended this to me. And my mom recommended it to her. And now I'm recommending this to anyone who lives in a foreign country or wants a picture of what it is like to live as a foreigner.... Here are couple passages in the opening chapters which sing with their truth and specificity and subtlety and humor and tragedy and all that gets lost in translation!
"At last the village found a word that applied to the North Americans. It was a long word, mediodesorientado, meaning half-disoriented. Like the child with the bandana over his eyes who turned ten times in a circle before being handed the long stick to break the pinata hanging high above his head. AS he flails at his elusive prize, a paper rooster stuffed with candy, he strikes the empty air in all directions. Everyone about him laughs. The blindfolded child laughs."
When white people first move to Uganda, they adjust to their own self-consciousness-- the whiteness of their skin marking their "foreignness" for all. In Uganda, children everywhere will yell, "mzungu". Let's turn to Wiki:
Mzungu from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
Mzungu (pronounced [m̩ˈzuŋɡu]) is the southern, central and eastern african term for "person of foreign descent". The term was first used by Africans to describe early European explorers. It is now commonly used in most Bantu languages of East, Central and Southern Africa. Especially in Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Uganda and Zambia.
In Swahili, the plural form of mzungu is wazungu.[1][2][3] The possessive kizungu (or chizungu) translated literally means "of the aimless wanderers". It has now come to mean "language of the aimless wanderers" and more commonly English, as it is the language most often used by Wazungu in East Africa. However it can be used generally for any European language. To distinguish between English and other European languages kiingereza in Swahili, chingeleshi in Bemba or lungereza in Luganda are used and are simply Africanized version of the word English by Epenthesis. Wachizungu, Bachizungu etc literally "things of the aimless wanderers" have come to mean the Western culture, cuisine and lifestyle.
Mzungu can also be used to describe an employer or the person who pays, regardless of gender or colour.[4]
The etymology of the word stems from a contraction of words meaning "one who wanders aimlessly" (from swahili words zungu, zunguzungu, zunguka, zungusha, mzungukaji-meaning to go round and round; from Luganda okuzunga which means to wander aimlessly ) and was coined to describe European explorers, missionaries and slave traders who traveled through East African countries in the 18th century.
Mzungu is preferred because Central and East Africa people do not link people of European origin to the "white" color. This is because the concept of color coding ethnicities is not a part of their culture. Actually they consider people of European origin to be reddish or pinkish.[5][6] For instance in Kinyarwanda and Kirundi, European people are also known as rutuku which means red.
So, you can see that the etymology: one who wanders aimlessly is quite a bit like "half-disoriented" and as much as some ex-patriates resent the tone/value which comes across in various contexts of this nature, I find that laughter is in fact the best option for us all. For the Ugandans who receive us and all our certainty (read:cultural arrogance), I hope more often than not, you can laugh and talk about us among yourselves. And as a foreigner who sometimes needs parts of my home culture, against all host cultural norms, I am working on laughing more often than I judge, justify, ridicule, guilt-myself....
A couple more examples from this book:
A Mexican woman is explaining the American woman to her friends; "When she is with children the senora reduces herself to their age. But an hour later she will tell their mothers not to have any more and explain how not to. In conflict with the pope. In conflict with God."
I don't exactly know how to explain how true this paragraph has been in my experience, but I'm deferring to the author's description. And how often I've longed to be inside the minds of the women who help us with our children as we spend money and time and energy "playing" with our children and yet also communicate our judgment on Ugandans for shipping their kids off to boarding schools, for spending all Sunday at Mothers Unions meetings and not at home with their children, for not "playing" with their children. And yet, ultimately the Western world has a birthrate of like .5 children and we're saying that we value children more because we're more "intentional". A lot of blanket statements here, but I do think the author has hit a nail on the head.
On a more superficial note, one that I personally struggle with OFTEN, here is an example of where the American is being laughed at about her "interior design":
".... Remedios uncovered a further extravagance at the Evertons house. 'They are scraping off green paint in the kitchen, hall and sala so they can whitewash the walls. They have employed Miguel Velasquez to chip away at the paint which is still in excellent condition"
Oh, so true... I'm currently debating a new color in my living room. And yet, this part of me is sitting write in the middle of this book, aware of how superfluous these interior decorating needs are... how wasteful on one level, how ungrateful I am for the good paint on my walls.... On the other hand I also think that I'm the one most judging myself for this--that over the long haul, a sort of contented presence in Uganda is more of a gift than a scarcity/resentment/compartmentalization, etc. Well, I'm letting the paint decision percolate a bit longer---will write about it if I do it. For now, I'm working on the "laughing" at myself.
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