It’s impossible not to stand out in Africa. Literally.
We were almost always the only white people around at any given moment. It’s not easy to hide from the color of your skin, especially when it’s blaring white and sends children away screaming and crying frequently. Yes, I get it. I stand out.
‘Mzungu, mzungu’……
…buy this…..give me that….or just extended stares
we’d sometimes get the impressions that these people just want to get a rise out of us. I suppose we could blame ourselves for that, a few we’ve come across this year mentioned the idea that the ‘white’ person is often seen as an ATM around these parts. In helping we hurt because it’s not just money that will fix, but often just aids greed. And while I did see some evidence of this being fairly well represented, it’s a bit more complicated than a simple money matter.
it was often that we’d find ourselves just walking down the street with a half empty water bottle in hand. We’d hear ‘give me your water’ as we passed by people on the side of the road. I once was walking into town and the man walking next to me, whom we were not talking to previously bluntly demanded, ‘give me 100’. Africans tend to be more direct than other cultures I’ve met and that could explain some of the difference here, but I’m not convinced yet. Once in Uganda I had gathered discarded dirty scraps of newspaper on the ground for an art project. A girl who was hanging around and asking me how to say words in English saw my pile, she picked up a piece – ‘give me this’.
in my head rings thoughts of
are you kidding? It’s trash from the ground. You can take 15 steps and pick up one just like it…
What do you truly desire? It’s clear there’s more. Who am I to you, what do you see?
We would go from country to country, be brought around town, going on house visits, to hospitals and speaking in churches. I can’t help but feel I’m a little bit on display. Each reaction is a bit different. Some light up and we’re popular, they may even seem a touch more popular themselves given our presence. Then there were others we met, ones that were unhappy with life and would just want to use us as a comparison. Comparison of how they have been dealt an unfortunate hand in life, how unknowingly blessed we were and how we just don’t understand.
People will always form opinions about you. Whether good or bad, based on reason or illogical, it’s unavoidable.
So there’s really nothing to be done here then? Sort of, yeah.
But I can tell you, a simple and profound fact about the world as I’ve come to know it. We’re all basically the same.
Yes, as different as we all hope we are, think we are or pity ourselves to be – there’s more similar than different.
Whether it’s an issue of money, an issue of tragedy, an issue of economy, an issue of government or what-have-you; the details may change but the underlying problems are strikingly alike. This is where relativism comes into play.
Take money for example, salaries paid in America may far outweigh those in Africa, 
but so does the cost of living. There are tragically poor in Africa dying, there are those tragically poor and dying in America. It may look a little different because of the details, embarrassing even, but the truth is plain. Tragedy is just as bad anywhere you look and I’ve come to learn that you can never belittle anyone’s trials. As large or small as they may seem, everyone’s tragedies are unique and profound to them, and you can’t take that away from them.
What we can do is to understand these differences and allow for them. Not to automatically assume that our ideas are the right ones and only plausible ones. That our lot in life is higher or lower than another’s.
We’re all people, we were all made by the same creator, we all live on the same planet, we breathe, we eat, we sleep.
