"Mzungu"

"Mzungu" means white person, and it is what all the African children yell when they see us. The big smiles, the frantic waving, the overall enthusiasm makes us feel like we are celebrities. The kids will run down the street to meet us - they want to us to touch them, to hold their hands, to take their photos. They especially love photos - they make funny faces and all jump into the frame when one of us takes out a camera. They giggle like crazy when we show them the image of themselves on the LCD screen, and then they want to do it all over again.


There are so many of these kids, all over the place, hoping that we'll acknowledge them - it's the weirdest feeling. "Mzungu!" they'll cry, and if you even make eye contact with them it's usually enough to incite a huge grin and an instant gigglefest.

"Mzungus" make merchants and service providers happy too - because they can charge us more than they charge their fellow Ugandans for pretty much everything. When getting taxis, our guides Anthony, Cosmas, Lillian and Christine will wander a couple of blocks away from our group, hire a car at a negotiated rate, then bring it back to pick us up. This usually causes some big time animosity - the drivers didn't know they'd be transporting a van full of mzungus, and they're angry that our guides aren't allowing them to make the money off us that they could.

Walking through markets in Kampala, sellers call us over - "Mzungu! Mzungu!" - hoping that we'll buy some of whatever they are selling at the "whitey" rate. We are big money in Uganda.

It is probably a slightly insulting term to use - mzungu - but if it makes the kids so happy, if we make the kids so happy, we aren't offended. And we've got so much more than these people, struggling to make a living, that we are usually okay with paying the mzungu uplifts. Strange that when we hear it, our ears perk up, and our heads turn. We answer to it. We are mzungus.