“Mzungu!”: journey through East Africa

Aboard a rickety bus from Mwanza to Ngara, I’m treated to a golden sunrise over Lake Victoria. This glorious moment fades as the reality of being wedged between a cracked window and Stan ‘the polygamist’ sinks in. Join a travel experience from a white "mzungu" girl along dark African roads

Stan is ecstatic to hear I’m South African and promptly asks “do you like Zuma?” to which I answer, “No, do you?” “Yes, of course, he’s a polygamist,” replies Stan with a toothy grin. “My dad and grandfather were polygamists, so it’s in my blood.” Stan’s final words of wisdom on the virtues of polygamy are “four is the perfect number – one short, one tall, one thin and one plump”. “But what about their personalities?” Silence.

Through the cracked window, I observe Tanzania in flashes of grandeur – from desert starkness to endless fields of sunflowers, women carrying bundles of wood, children running through sugarcane fields, men and women ploughing and young boys herdingAnkole cows under the gentle drops of the first rain I’ve seen in a month.

“Ah, you are African”

Starting the adventure
I’m on a three-month solo backpacking adventure through East Africa and this is an account of my border crossings and the meandering spaces in between. I journey through Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya – my pale African-ness yieldingmemorable tales along the way. In 2007 a group of white South Africans painted themselves black to protest the absurdity of the notion that African-ness is qualified by black skin. Without black paint at the ready, I do feel the constant need to ‘prove’ my African-ness on this trip.

Vintage roadside sewing machines, Dar es Salaam

I begin my travels in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, a pulsating city with high rise buildings and gridlocked traffic that abides only by the law of the individual driver – of car, bus, bajaj, motorbike or bicycle. In Dar es Salaam you can get plenty of ready-to-eat fruit – a slice of freshly cut watermelon or pineapple – just walking down the street. Roadside tailors use beautiful, vintage sewing machines, men sell coffee in tiny, soya-sauce like teacups.

After three days of street wandering, I board the ferry to Zanzibar where I encounter palm-lined beaches, maze-like, spice-infused alleys and the ornately carved wooden doors that so aptly characterize the charm that is Zanzibar.

Sauti Za Busara, the annual music festival set in the Old Fort, built in 1700 for Omani sultans, begins a day after my arrival. My ears are treated to beautiful East and West African melodies while I dance into the early hours and sip Konyagi (looks like gin) with new friends.

Zanzibar alleyway

Mzungu!
I’m not sure whether it’s being called Mzunguwherever I go – the equivalent of Mlungu, white person, in isiXhosa – or reading Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks, a study on race and the effects of colonialism, but I have a newfound heightened awareness of my paleness.

I’m told, when meeting locals, that I can’t possibly be South African because I’m white. I get the “no, where are you really from? Where are your parents from? Where were your grandparents born?”

A bajaj driver tries to rip me off. After I refuse to pay the driver’s inflated price, a sly smile creeps over his face.
“Where are you from?”
“South Africa.”
His smile broadens. “Ah, you are African”.
On the one hand I’m proud to finally be considered truly African by a Tanzanian; on the other hand I’m saddened that he only realizes I’m not European because I refuse to pay his blatantly inflated mzungu price.

No wonder Tanzanians regard South Africa as a "gangster's paradise"

Long road into Rwanda
A brief one-night return to Dar es Salaam sees me reunited with Dutch friends from Zanzibar. We meet up for dinner and then they – determined to show me Dar’s infamous nightlife – take me to Q Bar which features a scary mix of middle-aged white men gyrating on the dancefloor with Tanzanian prostitutes. Watching this and gazing up at the bar’s TV images of a Mozambican man being dragged behind a South African police van makes me decidedly nauseous. Coverage of South Africa on local and international TV while I’ve been here is full of the Oscar Pistorius case and police stupidity; no wonder Tanzanians regard South Africa as a “gangster’s paradise”.

I plot a seven-day bus route to Rwanda. Four days in, I climb aboard a boda-boda, my bag strapped onto the motorbike, and Philemon and I head off into dusty ‘no man’s land’, Burundi bound. Philemon sneakily adjusts his mirror so he can look at me while steering. I try to ignore his lustful gaze, choosing instead to admire the distant green rolling hills. Philemon, overcome by a moment of courage, proposes marriage. I burst out laughing, explaining that I cannot marry him. Wide-eyed and innocent, he simply asks “why?” After saying that we’ve only just met, Philemon counters with “but I love you”.

Philemon on his Boda-boda

Burundi proves to be tourist unfriendly. Unlike Tanzania where $50 earns you a three-month visa, in Burundi $40 will buy you a not-so-generous three-day stay. It becomes clear that my communication in Burundi will be comically limited to ‘bonjour’ and ‘fromage’, the extent of my French vocabulary.

Just before sunset on Lake Tanganyika’s ‘beach’, a group of locals arrive for their weekly soccer practice. Here, I meet Freedom, a middle aged Rasta without dreadlocks. He explains that he cut them off after seeing a Rasta mugging a tourist, to avoid being stereotyped a ‘Rasta thief’.
Freedom says dreadlocks are just a symbol, the spirit is still in his heart. “If you keep cool in your heart,” he muses, “everything in life ispolepole (slow)”.

Despite existing in most people’s minds, frozen in time, as a genocide-torn bloodbath circa 1994, Kigali is civil, to the point of being anal.

Uncivilized street food
Skyscrapers abound, surrounded by perfectly pruned shrubs. It is illegal to walk on the grass, just as it’s illegal for boda-boda riders to transport passengers sans helmets. These aspects combined with a ban on ‘uncivilized’ street food have caused a disjuncture between Rwanda and its East African neighbours. A memorial site, a church where thousands of Tutsis sought refuge during the genocide only to become sitting ducks, displays clothes belonging to those who met death between the four walls, illuminated by streams of light courtesy of the tiny holes in the tin ceiling, a vivid visual reminder of the stream of bullets that rained down in 1994.

Perfectly-prunes shrubs, Kigali, Rwanda

In Kibuye, on the banks of Lake Kivu, I board a boat trip to Napoleon Island. The sky is grey, the water has an eerie shade to it but this grey-ness is soon warmed by the bizarre news that Jackson, the shy skipper, is actually an Olympic swimmer. Not only is hean Olympic swimmer, he is the Rwandan Olympic swimmer, having represented his country at both the Beijing and recent London Olympics. Jackson makes a meagre living from tourist boat rides and teaching fellow Rwandans how to swim. Lake Kivu is Jackson’s ‘Olympic swimming pool’, the only space he has available for training.

Lake Kivu

Zuma, what a wonderful man, he's a polygamist, you know

The ferry comes on Tuesday
Opting for one less bus trip, I decide to catch the ferry north to Gisenyi. Locals cannot offer an expected time of arrival but guarantee it’s arrival as “It’s Tuesday. The ferry comes on Tuesday.” After waiting for hours, I spot the faint outline of a ferry on the horizon. On board I meet Idrisa, a Burundian living in Rwanda. He’s overjoyed to hear I’m South African after engaging in the now standard “but where do you really come from?” banter. Idrisa enthusiastically lists South Africans he’s heard of. “Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Pik Botha…” I’m not entirely sure how Pik Botha made it onto this list of esteemed humanitarians but I nod nonetheless. “Ah, and of course Zuma, what a wonderful man, he’s a polygamist, you know.” Later he insists, “You must be a good swimmer. All South Africans are good swimmers. You must be rich, only rich people live in Cape Town”.

In Gisenyi, I meet Brian, a middle aged American who says of Rwandan locals, “They say Mzungu and point and stare but then go home, switch on their TVs and watch Mzungus. It’s not like they’ve never heard of us”. I offer the thought that perhaps watching Mzungus on TV and then seeing them in the flesh are two vastly different experiences, aside from which most Rwandan villagers probably don’t own TVs.

A rule-twisting game of “cards”, Lake Bunyoni

Having illegal beers in Uganda
It’s a lazy Sunday afternoon in Rutinda village on the banks of Lake Bunyoni, Uganda. Children create elaborate imaginary games with stones, women gossip over pots of bubbling potato chips, sober men clean and de-shell crayfish, and not-so-sober men play a lively game of ‘cards’. The more unnamed local alcohol they consume – I’m told if it’s brewed incorrectly it can make you blind, though this may be urban legend – the more the rules twist. I later discover that, “let’s play cards” refers to the one and only card game in Uganda, which is called cards, and is a version of the popular game, Uno. I volunteer the next morning at a local pre-school where the teacher, in singsong fashion, teaches the children the difference between ‘we’ and ‘I’. When a child answers a question correctly, they get to stand, put their hands on their hips and do a victory dance while their fellow pupils clap and sing “Mary, well done. Mary you are so clever. You are so good. I love you, you are nice”.

Local brew, Uganda

After learning the ‘victory dance’, it’s time to climb Mount Sabinyo, a towering dormant volcano. The phrase ‘this is Africa’ springs to mind when being accompanied by not only a guide but also two AK47-wielding men. We’re told the guns are to scare of wayward elephants along the way but I’m inclined to believe the imposing AK47s are for protection against clandestine DRC rebels. After ten hours trudging rain-drenched through knee-deep mud and climbing perilously aged wooden ladders, we reach the summit. It’s surreal to legally stand in three countries at once, overlooking them at this dizzying altitude.

Hike with armed protection

The American dream
After days of lazing on the banks of Lake Nkuruba at a community-run campsite, playing ‘cards’ by candlelight and drinking local Waragi with new friends, I head to Kampala, a complex web of buildings and markets where suited businessmen commonly wield a briefcase in one hand and a live chicken in the other. I meet a group of Ethiopian immigrants who insist on feeding me Ethiopian food while they beat me at a few games of pool at a local bar. I’m happy to hear they are treated well in Uganda where they seek the ‘Ugandan version’ of the ‘American dream’ though equally saddened to hear that they too label South Africa a “gangster’s paradise” and do not consider it a safe place to chase dreams.

Kampala

I leave one complex city for another gridlocked urban hive – Nairobi. Boarding the early morning border-bound matatu, I’m greeted with a “good morning Mzungu” to which I curtly respond “Good morning black man”.  I lament having not bought the “My name is not Mzungu” T-shirt I spotted in a Ugandan clothing store.

Nairobi Africa's 'big apple'

Drifting dynamics in Kenya
From what I’ve heard of the fast paced no-nonsense nature of New York, I’m not hesitant to label Nairobi Africa’s ‘big apple’. That said, Kenya is a nation in transition, slowly coming to terms with a newly elected leader who is simultaneously president and pending trial at the ICC for crimes against humanity. On inauguration day, though nobody was killed, no stores were looted and no cars set alight – much to the disappointment of vulture-like international media – the mood was restless: my bag was almost snatched and an inebriated local man tried to kiss me.

After frenetic Nairobi, Mombasa is a sleepy coastal escape, with the Swahili coastal charm of Zanzibar, minus the hoards of tourists. Old Town Mombasa features narrow alleyways where children shriek with laughter running after soccer balls, and women sit on the roadside plying their spices. Continuing through Mombasa, I see a super mall directly across the road from another super mall with shack-like spaza shops in between. I’m struck by the city planning where unlike Cape Town’s ‘out of sight out of mind’ approach, poverty and extreme wealth co-exist in the same space, very much part of each other’s reality.

Sugarcane juice in Mombasa

Speaking of realities, I’m astounded by the frat-like nature of the Kenyan backpackers I encounter – whose days are spent baking weed brownies coated in Nutella, popping Ritalin tablets and mooning unsuspecting locals. Matt, from the UK, swears by his partying method, “I just pop a Ritalin, down a Jaegermeister and wash it down with a Smirnoff Spin every hour on the hour”. And people seem to think Africa’s all doom and gloom.

If my sojourn into East Africa has taught me anything it’s that, there’s a certain ring of truth to the age-old adage, ‘anything is possible’. Yes, I’m a young white middle class woman who generally sticks out like a sore thumb in any ‘African’ context, but this does not mean I cannot journey head first into these scenarios, and does not make me any less ‘African’ than the voluptuous black mama who is currently squashing me against the window of the soon to break down bus.

This article first appeared in the Mail & Guardian. All images (except the top one) courtesy of the author.

Follow Kyla Herrmannsen on Twitter@KylaHerrmannsen