"A Mzungu!"

It’s now approaching 10:00 AM here in Kigali, and we just wrapped up breakfast.  We’re meeting with Yakov and Tanya (two doctors from East Lansing) at 11:00 to discuss our time in the hospitals starting tomorrow, but I have a little time to kill before then.  I won’t go into too much background about Rwanda (you can read about the country here and genocide here), but I will say that they have an interesting amalgam of languages.  The country was first colonized by the Germans in the 1800s, but Belgium took primary control during World War I.  Because of this, French is one of the country’s official languages, along with Kinyarwanda.  A few years ago, Rwanda entered into the East African Union, so English is now an official language as well.  Add in some tribal dialects, and you have a variety of options to choose from when trying to communicate.  Main attempts to teach us the local language have focused on Kinyarwanda (if you can count hello, thank you, yes/no to be learning a language), but I feel like I may actually be better off if I could relearn some French.  You can generally find someone who knows English if asking for help on the street (aim young), but the few French speakers in our group are generally the go-to people. Still, English is being pushed heavily, and most signs and labels are now written in English making life much easier (significantly more for me than the Rwandans having to learn yet another language).

Apart from some language differences, there’s also the color difference.  I’ll admit that we stand out a fair amount (particularly in large groups), and you learn quickly that white people are known as “mzungus.”  I wouldn’t say that there’s a particular positive or negative connotation associated with the term, but it’s just the way it is.  When we walk down the street, mainly in our neighborhood, so far it’s become common for children to proclaim our presence (“A mzungu!”) and wave from the edge of the street.  However, it is not uncommon to meet other mzungus “in town” (downtown Kigali).  Some restaurants cater to “us” more than others, and I think it may be a tourist stop for some French speakers.  We’ve also met other young Americans here, but they almost seem put-off by our presence. Rwandans are generally social people from what I’ve noticed, and they’re willing to say hi in passing or start short conversations on the bus (more on that later).  While we’ve had a couple conversations with other English speaking Caucasians here, it’s often a chore just to get eye contact in passing (the most we got was a “sup” from a group we passed in our own neighborhood). Maybe it irks them that they’re not saving the world single handedly like they thought they were?  Or maybe you start to find new mzungus obnoxious once you’ve been here a while?  Time may or may not tell (we’re only here for a month), but it’s been an interesting observation.

We’ll see how much I can hold to this blog thing once we start rolling tomorrow, but I’ll attempt to get another one up tonight or tomorrow.

-Scott

We pass a school every morning on the way to our bus stop.