Mzungu! How are you?

“Mzungu” is Swahili for “foreigner.” Children call it out with amusement when they see me out running. Merchants yell it to call my attention to their wares in the marketplace. Fellow mzungu use it ironically when talking about the strange things we mzungu women do – like stop the car to get a newborn baby goat out of the middle of the road:

Saturday afternoon I went with Joan, a friend from the youth group, to a waterfall partway up Mount Wanale. On our way we passed through several villages on the outskirts of Mbale. Mzungu don’t wander up that direction very often, so we attracted a good bit of attention. English is taught in schools here, but all the English some of the smaller children seem to know is, “How are you?” So as we walked through the villages, children would call to me, “Mzungu! How are you?” They trailed after us like I was the Pied Piper all the way up to the falls, and when I got my camera out, crowded around with a mixture of eagerness, shyness and, fear.

All in all, I frequently feel like I’m going to be the subject of some small child’s dinnertime conversation.