Uganda blog 3- buisness sense

09-13-06
Alas, my days of (relative) luxury have come to an end. My room must be vacated for the bishop is coming. It is not all terribly dramatic, for I am moving into a place just across the hall. I will gain another window, and lose my own private bathroom. My view of the farm behind the house and the subsequent hills will be replaced with a view of the discotheques. I guess it is often when we lose things that we begin to appreciate them. Well, nuff said about that.
I have really been enjoying getting to know this new area. Everywhere I go I am called out as mzungu (this means white person. The name origionally derives from a Swahili word meaning English speaker). It makes you feel like a local celebrity at times as children poke out their heads and yell hello mzungu!! It is a good thing that my Swahili professor warned me about this term. Otherwise, I might have misinterpreted the reason everyone calls you it. Even the boda bodas try to charge more for you because you are a mzungu. It is not that much money, but it is worth negotiating back to the regular price since they are only trying to take advantage of you. It is odd how even though I am the only white person in my neighborhood, I still don’t feel like as much as a minority as I did at times in South Africa. Maybe it is the absence of the racial tensions in South Africa. I don’t feel the same anxiety. I don’t get this sense of racial profiling. I am not associated as a white person here with the same historic oppression that had occurred in south Africa.
I have been getting more chances to practice my Swahili as I talk with charles from Undungu and his other Kenyan friends. Today I met his roommate Gerald and another friend of his named Victor. Victor is a Rastafarian who spins. I have promised to share with him some of my favorite artists (namely Matisyahu: Hasidic Jew Reggae singer and Paul Oakenfold).

Oh, great news! It appears that we have power again. Not to infrequently the power is turned off here in my neighborhood and sent to another area . My laptop has been dying over these past few days and I haven’t had a chance to get a charge in it. Now we should be guaranteed power for the next few hours.

So it has been a good experience here so far. The taxis are safe (well, from criminals at least) and I have a good sense of mobility. I have become established here. I have had a few experiences that do provoke some reflections in me though. I can’t help but get the feeling that whenever I start chatting with someone, I am starting to enter some business deal. Maybe I am sensitive to the fact because I am the “mzungu” I am pereceived to be someone who is very wealthy. Iknow that I should not confuse hospitality and kindness with a person doing a type of business, but my time traveling has made me more guarded in certain areas.

While in South Africa, I remarked that there is a type of fear or paranoia that is indwelled in the people there. Indeed, this is an infectious feeling and I perhaps gained too much suspicion when I was there, but I wonder sometimes. Now I have no problem entering into agreements with people and going into business contracts concerning helping me either in my travel or my research, but it the informality of it that kills me. I never know when someone is trying to be nice or to be business savvy and seeing me as an asset or bank account.

I know I should shed my suspicion, but a certain healthy amount is always good. I guess I need to try to be as “wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”
So long for now.
mike