The First Mzungu

A few days ago I had the experience of being the first white person several folks had probably ever seen. It was way up in the mountains at a place called Ntchisi. There were terraced fields and mountain ridges. It was beautiful and the people were friendly, attentive -- even joyful. If I grew up in Malawi, I think it is where I'd want to live.

But those children could stare. They stared at me for hours. We joked that, if I was in a cage at the zoo, I'd be the most popular attraction. I was sitting in the car to keep it secure and a group of kids stood and stared at me for nearly two hours -- the same kids the whole time. They tapped on the glass to make the Mzungu move. And a blink or move of the head was cause for great excitement and conversation. I thought that if I just sat there and listened long enough I'd learn their language. They discussed me, and reported our brief initial conversation to passers by. They told them that I spoke some Chichewa because I'd said hello in their language. But they expressed frustration with the extent of the conversation after that. They knew that there were soccer balls in the back of the vehicle, so one of the girls tried to teach the others to say "give me a ball" in English. She got a pretty good chorus going but one of the older girls got it wrong and kept saying "give me a boy". I would have loved to give them a ball but I knew there was a good plan to distribute them equitably and that the most likely outcome of unilateral action on my part would be a scuffle over who got the ball. It would end up rolling down the mountain to be picked up by someone else entirely.

You could say the whole thing was a "mutual impression" and slightly more awkward for me than for them.