Children in Makere

When Tanzanian mothers want to scare their children into behaving, they tell them, “if you keep doing that, the mzungu’s going to come and get you!!”

And I almost have been the mythical mzungu boogeyman the past couple of days. Like the pied piper, I walk through the village with a growing swarm of children around me. One girl apparently told her friends she would follow me until she got to be just like me.

Some run away from me (one girl ran like her life depended on it while the whole neighborhood laughed at her; when she fell flat on her face, we laughed even harder), some run to me, trying to catch my attention, and all of them treat me like the best entertainment possible. It’s a game to chase after me and see who can get the closest before I look at them (or better yet, turn my camera in their direction) and they scatter.



On our first night in Makere, Robert picked out a “really nice” restaurant for us, though I was immediately skeptical because no one was eating there, and they were only serving rice and beans (fine by me, but Robert only eats ugali). Over the past day, their menu has expanded to include rice, beans, ugali and those nasty small fish with their shells still on that they buy dry and then cook in soup (as far as I can tell). Needless to say, I’ve been eating a lot of rice and beans the past couple of days.

Robert insists that we go back there for every meal—I’m tangentially wondering if he has a bit of a crush on the woman who runs it—and on our second night, the woman shepherded two bashful young girls to the bench of the other table to stare at us sit with the mzungu.

“Habarti?” I don’t know much Swahili, but “how are you?” is essential. Behind the glare of the room’s one gas lamp, directly in front of me, the girls are silent, either assuming that I’m not addressing them or too shocked to answer. I try again.

“Nzuri,” comes the timid, embarrassed reply, as the older girl, half hidden behind the younger finds her voice again.

“Nitwa nani?” I try to mimic what Robert says when he asks for people’s names. This is one of the cool overlaps between Swahili and Kinyarwanda: in Rwanda, I introduce myself, “Nitwa Danielle”

The older girl, bolder now, announces that her name is Kalega and her sister’s name is Epi (I think). We stare at each other in half-awkward silence, since I’ve used up almost all of my Swahili other than, “How is your morning?” which isn’t really appropriate at the moment. The girls are dressed in pale pink dresses, and the younger girl’s dress looks like exactly the sort of princess dress my four-year-old self would have absolutely loved to wear every day. I ask Robert how to say “I like your dresses.”

“Npanda mavazi zeno” It takes me a couple of tries, and I’m not sure my point gets across, because the young girl chirps up excitedly that her mami will give her clothes (or at least, that’s how I understood Robert’s translation). Their mother bustles in to wash some dishes in the corner and starts to tease the girls about how much they love the mzungu, how they’re going to dream about the mzungu, and what would happen to them if they went to the US.

The young girl has apparently decided that she wants to give me her dress, and sits there earnestly pulling the bows with a look of deep determination in an attempt to take it off while the rest of us try to breathe around our laughter. We tease her about what she will wear when she’s given me her dress, but she ignores us and begins to steadfastly brush the dirt from every inch she can reach, so that she can give me a clean dress.

Even though I usually think it’s creepy and disturbing when people here tell me they love me as soon as they see me, I’m going to chalk this one up to children being adorable, sweet, and sincerely giving.