mzungus

Arrived back in time for a surprise birthday party for our friend RK on Thursday. It was downtown at the city centre. The only other time I've been there was the day of the soccer game (oh, and by the way, these mzungus (actually, plural of mzungu is wazungu) got huge street cred in Zanzibar when we let people know we were at that game). We spent the better part of forever looking for the Indian Badminton Club in our taxi. There was a lot of defeated shoulder slumping by our cab driver and a lot of pole sana-ing ("very sorry") on our side. At moments like this when we are most clueless (out of our element, if you want to be generous), I sometimes wonder if the locals think, how the hell did these mzungus colonize us, we could have walked into their place and took it over. Another time I felt this way was at the soccer game when we showed up, got out of our taxi and were taken care of by people (out of the goodness of their hearts and not for recompense in this life) and we would have been completely helpless without cultural interpreters and connectors.

The Badminton Club cost 1000 Tsh to enter and had a large central area for eating and banquets and such and a giant tv showing cricket. You know what, I thought it was exactly what the Legion would be like in the sub-continent (never actually saw the badminton courts). The food was inexpensive and delicious. I had the Lamb Masala. The beers were cheaper than the grocery store. RK was not that surprised to find himself in the middle of a birthday party as he had kept running in to people all day that were supposed to be "out of town". But he hadn't expected myself and KO (my Newfoundland friend who is RK's roommate) to be there. We had carefully concocted a series of txt msgs outlining how our Zanzibar trip got extended as KO got pulled to the north coast by a gaggle of American girls (we wanted to say Swedish but it was stretching the bounds of believe as it was). Josey was in on this, lest you wonder how I think I can get away with KO as the main actor in this story. Anyway. lol wtf spring break! We made the party.

KO and I gave RK a shirt for his birthday. It says MZUNGU* on the front. All three of us love this word (and shirt). It so perfectly encapsulates the wandering, clueless, at times obnoxious and arrogant, definitely sweaty, hopefully still pink and not beet red, western tourist. KO's (and whole heartedly supported by RK and me) brainchild is to start a website like Look at This Fucking Hipster called Look at the Fucking Mzungu.We think it will go viral and world-wide. Look around, Mzungus are everywhere. Don't be one.

* it's not that bad. The Masai word for foreigner literally means, 'those that constrain their farts' because they wear pants and the locals wear kikoyes. I will write about my perfectly lovely kikoye that is coming home with me.