FIFTY SHADES OF MZUNGU

“The Uganda Media Council has blocked the screening of the movie, 50 Shades of Grey that was supposed to be premiered in Kampala on Valentine’s Day.” ChimpReports 12 February 2015

1. The Dutch mzungu, there at Cassia Lodge with his mistress, who was shouting about west African problems, “You want to know what to do with the Bo-Ko-Har-Ram? I’ll tell you what to do with the Bo-Ko-Har-Ram. Have you heard of napalm? Yeah. Napalm. The girls? Don’t worry about those stolen girls; the girls are gone. Drop napalm on the Bo-Ko-Har-Ram.” “Nay-palm,” he says. Napalm. Over and over.

2. The mzungu wearing so much kitenge it looks like the African Craft Village exploded when she walked through there seeking, unknowingly, for authenticity.

3. The mzungu missionary who when told to wear long skirts, interprets this as a thrift-store-purchased ankle-length skirt complete with a tie-dyed t-shirt from a previous mission trip to Mexico.

4. The mzungu who mere hours ago had cornrows styled, but without extensions (why would she want those?); her slippery hair is falling out of the plaits.

5. The mzungu at Acacia mall with another mzungu who looks, more or less, just like her. With them a brood of Ugandan children, smiling and having their pictures taken by these two beaming bazungu (one mzungu plus one mzungu or more, equals bazungu) women who proudly and loudly proclaim the children’s first ice cream.

6. The mzungu who writes articles about the corrupt election in Uganda while nursing his fourth beer, which he drinks to (among other things) numb the feelings he has not expressed to his Donald Trump voting parents.

7. That mzungu man—he could be from any bazungu land, couldn’t he—who sits at the restaurant near the taxi stage in Bunga. His long, greased hair still growing on the latter three-quarters of his scalp, pulled back, as you would imagine, into a low pony-tail. Aviator glasses shading his eyes. What are you doing here? What trouble are you hoping to find?

8. The mzungu who refuses to leave a tip.

9. And the mzungu who cannot stop tipping.

10. The mzungu who is cringing right now, reading this, afraid to be like all these others and yet who fears it might be inevitable.

11. The mzungu doctor, been here ten years, talking about how half of the expats here are on antidepressants. How our worlds are too different to parse. Is she right or is she wrong?

12. & 13. The bazungu who lurk in Kabalagala, at night, who came here just for this, who are ready to partake of its human offerings.

14. The American mzungu who is not white, but is called mzungu—to his surprise as well—because of his relative station and privilege.

15. The mzungu at Prunes watching ribbons of honey pour from her spoon into a hot glass of fresh mint tea wondering what she is doing here, so far from home.

16. The mzungu tired of being called a mzungu even if by those whom, she would say, are beautiful children, who are so happy to have seen such a strange sight, in their neighborhood, today.

17 & 18. The bazungu roommates who are here for a year. The girls who want the “everything local” experience. They roll their eyes at all the other bazungu who aren’t doing it right, like they are.

19. The mzungu who only buys fruits and vegetables from the supermarket, and usually, Nakumatt.

20. The mzungu incredulous to have been charged ‘mzungu price,’ or to have had negotiations start so high.

21. The mzungu who refuses to negotiate because he can afford to pay more, which, after all will help all those poor, poor people.

22. The mzungu who came for two weeks and left wearing her spoils—a group t-shirt “Save Uganda 2015” and a set of beaded sandals—paired with the littlest denim shorts she owns.

23. And the mzungu friend of hers, who takes a selfie with the backdrop of the children at the orphanage whom she let hold her hands for fifteen whole minutes. She stands in front of them with an arms-outstretched posture, a wide smile, glassy eyes, and clearly, a heart full of love. Not conquest. Adventure. Not conquest. Salvation.

24. The mzungu who says—loudly, so loudly—he would never use African children as a backdrop to his life.

25. The mzungu too paralyzed by poverty porn to take pictures of anything at all.

26. The German mzungu, an older man, who haunts the expat Facebook groups seemingly for only one purpose, to denigrate ‘these Ugandans’ and their Ugandan ways. In his profile picture, his long white hair rests on his shirt, crisp and white as his soul.

27. Oh let’s not forget about the mzungu who finds these Ugandans very, well, how should she um, put this… very, discourteous in their business dealings.

28. And the mzungu—or perhaps he or she is the same one—who hates him or herself for thinking this.

29. The mzungu who insists on greeting her askari in Luganda, despite her poor pronunciation, and the fact that he is not a Muganda.

30. The American mzungu at the ‘Mexican cantina’ who orders her favorite cheap drink, Novida and Waragi, hoping the waitress will raise an eyebrow, eventually name a drink after her. No such luck.

31. The mzungu who lives to eat at that one and only American establishment in Uganda: Kentucky. Fried. Chicken.

32. The mzungu (surely it was a mzungu?) who made the t-shirt that is sold at the Red Chili guesthouse “My name is NOT mzungu.” Okay: We got it.

33. The mzungu married to a west African who is always joking about how her car should be searched more carefully by security—don’t they know she’s the white widow? Haw-ha. Her husband doesn’t laugh, requests she keep her voice down.

34. An embassy mzungu—with her wood floors and that cocktail bar which all the other expat mothers pretend they don’t want—who sells her kid’s outgrown American toys at full retail price, because she can, and, you know, otherwise she’ll go ahead ship them back in her container.

35. The atheist peace-corp mzungu who confounds his language teacher.

36. The born-again Christian mzungu, so sure of her purpose, her facebook posts, and American gun-laws.

37. The mzungu wife of the mzungu development worker, who doesn’t leave her house because she doesn’t want to be called out to: ma-zooo-n-goooo. She didn’t know she was white and powerful and visible until now. She wants to wash off this new identity but the water pressure in the shower leaves her wanting. And so, she will visit the mzungu doctor who knows her story already, heard it so many times, the scrip will practically write itself. She’ll be playing tennis and drinking cocktails with other development wives, soon, very soon.

38. Then there is the other mzungu, the one who refuses to talk to anyone about how hard she finds life because she doesn’t want to reinforce the stereotypes in the Western mind of this place.

39. The mzungu who is always talking about corruption.

40. The mzungu who is always talking about ‘the poor.’

41. The mzungu who is always talking about homosexuality.

42. Peter, the British mzungu at Emin Pasha on a Saturday night. He was so excited to meet two Ugandan women (though they were not in fact Ugandan women) at the other end of the bar, who, he was told, ‘speak good English.’ “Where you from?” he asks the American. –America, she says. “But where are you really from” –New York, the Bronx, she says, turning away. “But I mean, before that, where did you come from?” –I’m African-American. I’m Black American. “But before that?” –Um, Peter… slavery? “Oh,” he says, only mildly taken aback, “Well, you can be my slave, any time.”

43. The mzungu who laughed when these women told her about Peter because she didn’t know what else to do with her horror and shame.

44. The mzungu who rages against the Ugandans who refer to her husband, a black man, as her driver, and against her husband who thinks “it’s an understandable error.”

45. One of the bazungu who came to Uganda for a year or two or a month or two and published their journal of their adventure/conquest/journey because their mother, credited in the acknowledgements, said it was simply amazing what they’d seen/done/written.

46. The young mzungu who has been in Jinja for some time now. She “adopted” 13 children and tells us in her ‘best selling’ book about her faith and the street children of Jinja: “chances are, they have never been loved,” ever.

47. & 48. The bazungu couple adopting a child because they too were adopted—by faith—whose favorite story is about the beach full of starfish and they thought maybe (some money in the hands of officials was of no consequence if) they too could save one little starfish.

49. The mzungu who believes she is better than every one of these bazungu.

50. Let us not forget the original mzungu, in the eighteenth century, rushing here and there, doing nothing, so busy, so anxious, dizzying. He is the one from whom all fifty shades of mzungu derive our name.

A. Awosanya is a mzungu (oyinbo) with a BA in Community Studies from UC Santa Cruz and an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. Currently, she lives in east Africa with her husband and son. She loves reading and spending time in the literary community where she facilitates other writers on various initiatives. She’s obsessed with marabou storks, street preachers, and other peculiar things in her current environment.