Mzungu!

"Mzungu! Mzungu! How are you? I'm fine!" - If you're a foreigner and walking through a town in Africa, you're pretty much guaranteed to hear this. Most often the culprits are little children who all somehow seem to know the phrase "How are you? I'm fine." (Note that they don't actually wait for you to ask them how they are, they just immediately answer that they're fine) Oftentimes they'll chant it together in unison (which is actually sort of cute) and you'll hear it coming from unknown directions and hidden pockets like an ambush - behind a fence, underneath a bush, a child being washed by their mother. On one occasion, I saw a little baby using up some of its precious first words trying to say "moo zoogoo..how ah yoo" It's sort of cute and endearing at first - it almost makes you feel like a celebrity, being recognized and called out anywhere and everywhere you go - but after a few weeks, as with the paparazzi, they can definitely start getting annoying. Looking back at my own childhood, I think the closest thing i could think about to this behavior is how we always used try to get a truck to honk its horn everytime we saw one pass us by on the highway. Sometimes the truck drivers ignored us but It was exciting to get any kind of response.

Random school kids out for lunch saying hi. (I don't know what's wrong with the kid on the bottom left)

 Children playing in the schoolyard in a different part of town excited to see the "Mzungu"

children from one of the slums, Nyallenda

They love it when you take their picture and show it to them

Random kids yelling out "Mzungu" while we walk down the streets

As an Asian, I also get called Chinese all the time. Oftentimes, I'll be walking down the street and a street vendor or piki driver will yell out "Chinese" or Ching chong. When I bought new sunglasses at the local mall, the lady wrote "Mr. Chinese" on my receipt. Being Asian does have its perks though - since Asians are not that common here, much of their impression of us comes from movies, most of which happen to be Kung Fu flicks. On one occasion, our local volunteer started laughing while we were walking down the street, explaining to us that he heard one of the African men telling another, "you better watch out for those guys over there, they can knock your teeth out with one blow!"

Needless to say, as a foreigner and as an Asian, I stand out a lot. And unfortunately, one of the most annoying things about this is the idea, held by many of the locals, that foreigners are just made out of money. As foreigners, we oftentimes pay more for everything, sometimes significantly more because prices are usually not printed - transportation, food, and merchandise. To be sure, it is probably true that I do have access to more money than many locals (although I would also like to point out that considering how much debt I will incur due to medical school, my income will be significantly more negative than theirs for the next few years) but it is not a good feeling at all to know you're getting ripped off and paying more than an African for the exact same things, especially when you're here to try to help the country.

However, those locals who try to rip me off obviously don't see it that way: the mzungu who is able to pay more should pay more. There's a feeling of entitlement to my money and a sense of justice in taking it (in a very Robin Hood-esque mentality I suppose). Sometimes locals will see a mzungu coming and simply go up to them, stick their hand out, and demand money: "give me five shillings." One time, a local was helping out a mzungu set up a Kenyan neighbor's bee-hive project, seemingly out of the goodness of their heart - helping to build and take care of the hives - but then at the end of the day said, "all I ask for in return is a brand new cell-phone."

I'd like to think that this line of thinking is unique to Kenya but it's pretty common all around the world. For example, it reminded me of how low and middle class Americans generally don't even think twice about taxing the upper class at higher rates - it's only fair that they should pay more right? I don't know what it's like to be in the uppermost tax bracket but they're probably not too thrilled about paying a higher percentage of their income. In general, I think that when we see that someone has a lot more than us, it's easy to feel a sense of injustice and that perhaps they owe us something.

The truth is that as a Christian, I should be trying to help the poor because that's what I'm called to do, more so than anything else. Unfortunately, it's not always clear how it is that we should help the poor. Oftentimes, helping the poor in a meaningful way is pretty hard and confusing. Surely we can't just go around handing out money or gifts to anyone who looks like they need it. There would be chaos and it would also potentially create a harmful cycle of dependence where the recipients would not learn to help themselves and also feel justified in their sense of entitlement to the giver's goods. Unfortunately, I think a lot of the missions and aid work in the past did exactly that - giving out money, food, supplies rather haphazardly to the needy, creating a cycle of dependence and a growing sense of inadequacy in a nation's ability to help itself. Sometimes giving someone what they want, or rather, what think they need, is precisely what will hurt them the most.     

If we are indeed inclined to expect something from someone that has more than us, how much more do we expect from God? We all know and have personally felt angry at God for not making us richer, not making us more beautiful or talened, taking away a loved one, striking us with some kind of disease, etc. We might even bargain with Him: "ok, for all the good things I have done today - I went to church, helped an old lady across the street, donated a lot of money - all I ask for is a brand new cell phone." We ask for, or maybe even demand in prayer that he gives us what we think we need, perhaps not realizing that those things might be precisely what will hurt us the most. I guess we can find solace in knowing that although we might not know how to help the poor because at times it is difficult and confusing, God knows how to help the poor (in this case the poor would be all of us). And furthermore, He has already given us something that was more costly to Him and of greater value to us than we will ever know.