Today I’m puzzling over what it means to be a muzungu in an African country. I’ve mentioned before that here in Uganda people have a name for white people – muzungu. Every time I walk to the corner to buy a loaf of bread or go for a run over the dirt roads of my neighborhood, children greet me waving and smiling with a cry of “Bye Muzungu.” Children wave at me and shout muzungu when I am riding in the car through the neighborhood on my way to work. It’s not just limited to children – adults use it to get my attention as well. If I’m walking along the road near the taxi lot the matatu taxi drivers will shout to ask “Muzungu are you going to Kampala?” or wherever they are heading. People in shops will see me walk by and call “muzungu” to get my attention or just to tell each other a white person is passing by. The boda boda drivers (motorcycle taxis) call “Muzungu, tu gende?” meaning “White person, shall we go?” Everywhere I go I am greeted by strangers calling out to me.
The word muzungu can have different meanings depending on how it is used. One thing is certain though – it is always understood by the person using it to be said with a positive inference. It is never considered an insult to call someone muzungu. This is quite a change for someone who grew up in the aftermath of the racially segregated South in the United States. What a taboo it would be in the US to call someone a name that is based on the color of their skin! But here it is not so – the Ugandans aren’t burdened with the same set of cultural baggage that we have in this area. This is not to say that they don’t carry around their own sets of mores and social cues. For example, the other meanings laden in the term muzungu relate to socioeconomic status. It is entirely possible for someone who is not white to be labeled a muzungu. Muzungu literally translated from Kiswahili means “someone who wanders” which was first used to describe European explorers, missionaries and slave traders who wandered through East Africa. The term implied a certain level of wealth or high economic status to be able to afford to move around in what appeared to be an aimless manner. So now the term can be used to describe someone with money or the person who is paying which means that even Ugandans can be considered a muzungu. It can be descriptive of socioeconomic status not just race.
This complicates matters for how people here perceive me. When people here look at me and label me muzungu, I usually assume it is the obvious usage of the term. They are calling a spade a spade. Look, there is a white person. We see that you are different based on your appearance and we are labeling you that way. However, it’s not usually that simple. Usually the secondary meaning of the word also is attached because of culturally conditioned expectations of how white people or other foreigners (who get lumped in to the muzungu business too) act when they come to Uganda. It’s not just a label that is descriptive of my appearance. It says something about how Ugandans expect me to act and who they think I am.
Children expect me to wave back and smile because all muzungu do it. Boda boda drivers expect me to want to ride rather than walk because no muzungu would need to walk. Most people assume I wouldn’t be able to greet them in Luganda when they ask “how are you, muzungu?” because no muzungu would bother to learn to speak in their language. The most prevalent expectation is that I would have money to pay for anything I want without a thought and that I don’t need to budget and be prudent about where my money goes. Sometimes it gets to the point that merchants will try to overcharge me based on the color of my skin or people persistently ask me for handouts in all kinds of forms.
It is human nature to categorize based on prior experience. We make sense of things by relating to what we already know. It’s a component of our learning process. The normal pattern is that if we come across something unfamiliar we seek to make a connection to something we know. From this connection we form an observation. Then we can test our observation over time and with repeated experiences to see if it makes sense. Connecting to what we know is how we make meaning of what we experience around us.
We also can describe something new or unknown by relating it to something we do know. Similes and metaphors are extremely useful in this way. If you want to describe something new to someone you can say it is like something else. There isn’t really a way to fully explain something that is completely foreign without relating it to something the person already knows. But you can never really understand without actually seeing or experiencing it in person. You can come close but without the personal experience of fully engaging with the unfamiliar, the description of it will fall short.
This brings to mind the tale of the blind men and the elephant. The short of the story is that six blind men go to “see” an elephant for the first time. The one who felt its side thought it was like a wall. The one who felt its tusk thought it was like a spear. The third who felt its knee thought it was like a tree trunk. The fourth who felt its tail described it as like a rope. The fifth man who touched the ear said it was like a fan. The sixth man who touched the trunk decided it was like a snake. Of course the moral of the story is that each man’s experience was in some way right but no one of them had a complete understanding of what an elephant really is like.
So with people and relationships the problem comes when we happen to stop short with our first observation. We make that first connection but leave it at that. We don’t engage the other to discover if what we think about someone by this associative process is accurate or captures the complete picture of who they are. These misperceptions become barriers to real relationship with each other. So earlier I said it is never considered an insult by the speaker to call someone a muzungu but does that mean it is a compliment? It may not be an insult but I don’t think it is a compliment either. I think that when we insist on dividing ourselves into us and them, we shortchange our experience with one another. Labels become a crutch we use to make us more comfortable that we know who someone is. By seeing someone only through the lens of that label we are saying they are less than who they really are.
Most of the people in Uganda have very few opportunities to engage with a muzungu one-on-one for more than a brief exchange so they don’t have an opportunity to look beyond the label because of lack of first hand experience. Their perceptions will be slow to evolve and I certainly won’t be able to make a sea change in attitudes all on my own. Most people will continue to see money first when they see a white person and to continue to think that is who the white person is. But as I move around in my neighborhood I try to engage with another person each day to show there is more to me than what the muzungu label implies. I can’t say I am making a big dent in the barrier that stands between me and the people here in Uganda who see me as a muzungu but I am chipping away at it right where I am, one exchange at a time.
