I walk 10 miles to work everyday

Language is a funny thing. It can bring people together, separate them, alienate people or make them feel welcomed and at home. When people know English here and aren’t just asking me for money it makes me feel an instant connection with them. It’s the same thing when I speak Kiswahili. Peoples faces light up and they instantly have more respect for me and are super excited. There are also times that because I don’t know kisambaa and not a lot of Kiswahili I feel totally alienated and made to feel stupid and sort of unwelcomed. This happens mostly in interviews but when anybody laughs during an interview or even greetings I always get the feeling its about me but have no way of knowing. I’m kept in the dark about so many things because I don’t know the language. Language shapes cultures and can define who a person is based on how they use it. Based on tone and the words I do know in kiswahli I can tell what guys im interviewing (or are around during interviews) are assholes and whose not.

         

Not totally related to language but on the same sort of topic in coming here I knew I would be strange to the people here and their culture would be strange to me but even after 3 months I still feel so alienated and celebrity like—maybe even more than before. I thought I would get used to the culture and they would get used to me and we would sort of mesh but that hasn’t happened. Even into the second week all the kids stare at me chanting and cheering “mzungu! Mzungu! Mzungu!”. Because of how much aid and projects white people fund I feel like Mzungus to them mean money and when they see me that’s all they think. It gets so hard and tiring to be a celebrity here not for my accomplishments but because of my skin color, the money my skin represents and the fact that they hardly ever see white people up here (although it bothers me way more in Arusha where they see white people everyday). I guess its just really hitting me that no matter what I do or say I will always be different and strange to them. I will never be able to mesh with their culture because  the color of my skin instantly separates me. It’s a hard thing to come to grips with and accept. Im so tried of ALWAYS being the different one.

Oh also I measured it I power walk 4.6 miles to and from Mazumbai and then walk probably an extra mile around Mgwashi everyday for work.