Joe: Friday, June 17th 

We often hear children yelling “Mzungu! Mzungu!” when we enter a new village.  Sometimes the children run up and welcome us with generous smiles or curious stares, and sometimes they flee in terror.   I had thought mzungu means white people, and I assumed it may have a negative connotation.  Said explained it is the swahili word for traveler and we should not take it any offense when he hear the children yell.  I asked why the children sometimes flee, and he provided an elaborate explanation that I found a little far fetched at first.  

Children are taught to carry everything on their heads beginning at age 3.  We are constantly impressed at what the kids and women balance on their heads as they walk up and down the steep winding paths of the mountains:  machetes, the large field hoes, large bundles of firewood with an added heavy hoe perched on top, and the ubiquitous five-gallon buckets of water that appear to equal or exceed the body weight of some of the kids.  Men seem to lose the skill at a certain point, but women maintain it for life.  The only thing that is carried on the back are children.  I have been amazed (and alarmed) to see the “older” siblings of 5 or 6 carrying infants around on their backs and no adults in sight.  The mzungus, with their large backpacks, stand out as strange to the kids, and the parents use this differentiator to their advantage.  When the kids resist their mother’s instructions to herd the goats or tend the plots, she will tell them she is going to tell the mzungus to take them away to Europe or the US in their backpacks.  

When we entered the next village, Said looked at a group of kids, pointed at his backpack, and then made a gesture as if he was going to come after them.  They screamed and ran away.  “Even I am mzungu with my backpack.”