On being very white

So I’m white. Or at least really pale-skinned. Which tends to almost look a little iridescent in the equatorial sun. And fortunately, due to SPF 30 sunblock and hats, I haven’t turned pink. But I do stand out in a crowd of Kenyans…

In fact there’s a word in Swahili for Caucasians: “Mzungu”. I think its pretty similar to “Gringo” en espanol, but with a little less overtone of slang and insult. According to our Lonely Planet travel guide, 0.1% of Kenya’s population is “European”, which I take as Caucasian. Which surprised me as this country was a British colony up until 1963, but I sure haven’t seen too many white folks that aren’t associated with the IU-Kenya/AMPATH programs.

We hear the word mzungu fairly often when walking around, whether its people talking about us, or trying to get our attention. Like “mzungu… taxi!”. And while we certainly have drawn a lot of attention for simply having a lighter skin tone, it has nearly always been good natured.

Little kids, especially in rural areas, are pretty fascinated by us. Allison and I have often repeated the phrase “Howareyou Howareyou Howareyou” that we heard from a group of kids a few weeks ago when we were slowly driving through a small town.

And even in Eldoret this past weekend, a friendly gentleman on a crowded downtown street corner singled me out and shook my hand for probably 15-20 seconds as I was walking, greeting me in English and trying to convince me that to be strong, I needed to eat snakes. I’m guessing he doesn’t pass on that kind of advice to any old Kenyan on the street. And no, I haven’t eaten any snakes here. At least that I’m aware of…

But as a caucasian protestant heterosexual male in the United States, I don’t often find myself in situations where I’m representing a minority group as far as your check the box diversity categories go. And for whatever reason, I’ve been more aware of the fact that “I ain’t from around here” more here in Kenya than I have when previously traveling abroad.

So its been an interesting 6 weeks being mzungu.

Lake Baringo

Sorry for the lack of posts recently—I think we’re at the natural “we’ve been here for several weeks, not much new to report on”. We are spending the Easter weekend in Eldoret so it should be pretty low key. Last weekend we did travel to Lake Baringo, one of the Rift Valley fresh water lakes. It is most notable for the variety of birds that can be found there. We had a good time, saw tons of birds as well as a few hippos and crocs. No sign of the elusive hiphopopotamus though. It was pretty hot there and we were glad there was a pool to relax in. We now *really* appreciate the weather in Eldoret.