As I continued up the dirt path, I came upon a little girl,
dust-covered and adorable. Her eyes lit
up when she saw me. She broke into
song. She pranced around, clapping her
hands, singing “Muzungu, muzungu, muzungu!”
Had it been another day, I would have slowed to talk to her. I would have tried to ask her name or how old
she was. But today I just forced a smile
and said hi. She followed me down the
path a ways, continuing her enthusiastic song, her innocent excitement almost contagious. But today, I was just trying to hold back
tears.
Earlier on my walk home, an old woman crossed the road to
greet me. I smiled, shaking her hand,
rambling off all the greetings I knew.
Then she started asking me for money.
My Kinyarwanda vocabulary is still small but I know the words for money
and hunger. I pretended not to
understand. She pointed to her stomach
and to her mouth. I understood. I understood perfectly. She began to get frustrated with me. I wanted to be anywhere but there. I really wished I couldn't understand
her. She became angry and I walked away.
That day wasn’t really all that different from other
days. I am often greeted with excitement
and I am often asked for money. Here in
Rwanda, to those who don’t know me by name, I am muzungu. White person. Or more literally translated: rich
person. For the most part, I appreciate
the attention. In fact, I need the
attention. I have moved 8,000 miles away
from my family and friends, so I long for relationships with those in my new
community. I need my neighbors to reach
out to me, to recognize me as new, and welcome me. And they do.
They call out muzungu in warm
welcome. And I am so grateful for the warm
handshakes and the friendly, inquisitive Kinyarwanda conversation. These interactions are often the highlight of
my day.
But that day I was tired.
And when the old woman became angry, something inside me cracked. First, I wanted to cry out of the selfish
desire to just fit in. I wanted to pass
through the crowded soccer field without everyone staring. I wanted to be greeted only as Sarah and not
as muzungu. I wanted to immerse myself in this culture
and not from the outside.
But what hurt the most was the frustration I felt towards the
systems that have created the separation between the old woman and I. I wanted to sit down on the side of the road
and cry. I wanted the old woman to sit
down and cry with me. I was angry at the
world for creating a system where my new neighbors could look at the color of
my skin and correctly assume that I had more money than they did. I thought back to a conversation I had had
with a small congregation near Uganda.
We were discussing community organizing and development. A woman asked my fellow YAGMs and I how our
country became so rich. She asked this
without any bitterness but simply out of the desire to empower her country and
better the future of her children. I
wanted to tell her that it was just that way when I was born and that I had
nothing to do with my country’s wealth.
I had as little to do with the establishment of my country's wealth as
this young mother with her country’s lack of wealth. But she wasn’t going to passively accept that
her country is poor, nor should I passively accept that my country is
wealthy. This dichotomy was not our
doing yet bridging the gap is her right and my responsibility.
But what do I do? In the old woman’s anger, did she
recognize that my country’s wealth existed at the expense of her country’s
poverty? Should I have reached in my pocket and handed the old woman a few
coins? Or would that have only supported
our separation as beggar and benefactor?
Instead of satisfying her immediate need for a few coins, is there I way
I can get rid of her need for good? Is
there something better I can do?
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