Last Monday and Tuesday, I went to the field with Eric, Allen and John to finish measuring OVCs for school uniforms. On Wednesday afternoon, the Sembabule staffed piled into two vehicles and headed to Mubende for our regional meeting. The meeting took place on Thursday and Friday, and it was nice to see everyone again. We discussed the accomplishments we’ve achieved in the past quarter, and planned out our work for this quarter (Jan, Feb, Mar). The country director was also present at the meetings, which was really beneficial – it’s good for us to hear her perspective and get her guidance on things, and it’s also good for her to see how things work in the field.
On Friday afternoon we had our New Year Party (which, unsurprisingly, started 2.5 hours late… goat takes a long time to cook, man!) which mainly consisted of eating a lot of good food, and a Secret-Santa-ish gift exchange. My gift, which I dug out of the bottom of my suitcase before leaving Sembabule, was a few packages of Silly Bands that I brought from the US (when I left the US, my friends and I were in the midst of a slight Silly Band obsession…). Luckily the country director picked my gift, so her 2 year old daughter can enjoy the Disney Princess Silly Bands.
After we finished eating and gift-giving, I hitched a ride with the WellShare vehicle going back to Kampala. It was a short weekend in the city, but it was still nice. I ate a surprisingly good, non-dry (I don’t like the word “moist,” so I’m going to say “non-dry”) cheeseburger at New York Kitchen. That place is seriously my saving grace – all different kinds of American-style comfort food. I did some shopping, and went to the cinema to see “The Tourist” on Saturday night.
The trip back to Sembabule was relatively painless. On the last leg of the journey though, the car stopped in a tiny town for roughly a half an hour for reasons unknown to me (I don’t even try to ask questions anymore when things go wrong or take an unexpectedly long time – I just resign myself to waiting). Inevitably, a crowd of children gathered round to stare at the slightly annoyed mzungu sitting in the front seat with the window down. When children stare and yell at me, I can generally handle it, because they’re young and usually cute and probably don’t know that what they’re doing could be construed as rude. However, suddenly an young man appeared next to the car, shaking my hand and saying “Hello, mzungu!” I politely shook his hand and said hi, but to be honest, I am immediately turned off by anyone who calls me mzungu to my face, so I turned away and hoped he wouldn’t want anything else.Then he started speaking Luganda and I had no idea what he was saying. A man in the backseat told me that this man outside the car wanted my phone number. I lied and told him that I didn’t know my phone number, but why would he want it? So we can talk on the phone, the man translated.
This is what gets under my skin: that an adult (usually it’s only men that do this) refers to me as if my name is “mzungu” and asks for my number, solely because I am white. Yes, I understand that I am a complete anomaly in rural Uganda, and of course I’m going to attract attention. And I’m not naïve enough to think that people will get so used to me that they’ll stop hollering at me. I can deal with being treated like a Nordic freak here. But the fact that this man was bold enough to walk up to me, address me as “mzungu” and immediately expect me to give him my phone number is absurd. He didn’t even speak English – how exactly would our phone conversations work? I felt like a zoo animal. Also, I think it’s rude when adults call me “mzungu.” When children do it, I can let it slide… but adults should really know better. Maybe some people chalk this up to a cultural difference or misunderstanding, but I still think that adults can and should understand that it’s rude to yell at someone and call them “White Person” to their face. And in my opinion, it’s far-fetched for them to expect that I’m going to respond graciously and willingly give out my phone number.
Not all Ugandans are like this. Plenty of adults and children are completely respectful and polite, and greet me as if I am a person, rather than a skin color. And in this situation, I wasn’t fearful for my safety or anything like that. I’m sure this man just wanted to go back to his friends and boast that he got a mzungu’s phone number. But it still irked me. I wish it didn’t, but it did.
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