A few weeks ago we spent time with some missionary friends
in another part of the country and got to talking about how their girls
(elementary school age) have adjusted to living in a rural African setting. The
father told me about some of the hardships of having the girls in school and
their decision to homeschool them instead. They also shared about how the girls
have a core group of friends that they click with, but occasionally, they still
have some difficult moments when others tease them, or when adults say things
about their appearance or accent. Later in the day we were walking through town
when we happened upon a crowd of people that had gathered for a Chief’s inauguration.
The mother prepared the girls that if we continued down that path we would be
walking through the mass of people – some might say things or touch them. She
asked them if that would be ok or if we should take another route. The girls
thought a moment, and opted to skirt around the crowd. They just didn’t feel
like hearing “hey you white girl!” that afternoon, and the mother affirmed that
that was just ok.
I think I’ve been “sheltered” a bit from some of the
challenges of raising a minority kid up to this point. Our community has doted
on Bronwyn with royal affections. But our time with our friends made me start
thinking of some potential hard places in the future. I’m fairly confident that
as long as she stays within five kilometers of home, she’ll have no problem.
But our shopping trips in town have potential for harm and I feel it’s my duty
to protect her from that as much as I can. I don’t think it’s rational to try
to avoid hard environments all together, and we’ll have to work with her on how
to handle heckling once she’s old enough to process that. But in the mean time,
I’ve started doing the best thing I know to do – raising up for her a host of
advocates.
The “roughest” place to be a little white girl (here) has got to be
UB market – the locale we frequent for spare parts, fish, chitenges and used clothes. I’ve started making friends with shop keepers, letting Bronwyn play
with their babies and telling them as much of our story as possible so that we
get separated out from the miners, the Peace Corps volunteers and the random
foreigners who pass through and are prime targets for a cheap laugh.
I feel like I’ve had quite a bit of success – instead of
walking down the isle looking for a pile of fish and hearing “Ba mizungu! Ba
mizungu, nkopwe no mwana wenu!” (White lady, I’m going to marry your daughter.)
Now I hear, “Bana Winnie, good morning, how is Winnie today?” And if someone who
hasn’t had a proper introduction yet decides to be obnoxious, there is a group
of people to say, “hey you, she’s not ‘mizungu’ she’s Bana Winnie and she lives
in Fimpulu and she speaks Bemba so she can hear everything you are saying so
don’t be a punk about it.”
And I appreciate it, because I don’t think most people
actually want to be jerky. I just think foreigners in an otherwise
homogenous area make easy targets for cheap laughs when life gets boring and
there’s nothing else to spice it up. And
by me clarifying that we are actually far more Zambian than most people
realize, it just sort of removes that temptation to use us as fodder for the
“I’m bored and want to get a laugh at your expense” category. I’m sure there
will still be a few who eventually cause Bronwyn to ask, “Mom, what is UP with
that guy?” And we’ll work through that when the time comes. But I hope that her
advocates are so great in number and quality that, regardless of circumstance,
her mind is set – Zambians are wonderful, worthy of friendship and respect, and
in their presence I feel safe and loved.
