Culture Shock

I’ve been really busy since the last time I posted. We did end up going out, though, as you could expect, it wasn’t really ‘clubbing’ as we know it. There’s a bar in Gulu called BJ’s that’s really popular with what Morgan calls ‘ex-pats’ – i.e. foreigners, Peace Corps workers and the like – and it was easy to see why. Though hardly lit at all, there’s a definite tropical theme to the bar, and the speakers pump out an eclectic playlist of remixed Western music, anything from Ke$ha to Blink 182 to Nickelback. The bar has theme nights, too. Wednesday was comedy night, and Thursday was the hugely popular trivia night, where the prize was a case of one of Uganda’s own beers, Bell (I prefer Nile, the competing Ugandan lager, but hey, free beer is free beer). All 15 of us showed up to play, and they split us into two teams. We scored really well – my team got 21, and the other scored 24, but the high score was 31. We plan to make Thursday trivia nights a tradition; we’ll get ‘em next time.

When we went out, though, I picked up on a lot more than random bits of trivia. As a white-skinned, female, American student, I am a huge commodity (throw in the European-looking blonde hair and blue eyes and I’m downright invaluable). I haven’t been asked for money once while I’ve been in Gulu – I have, though, had people, particularly men, call out to me or come up to me in bars wanting to marry me and take them to America. They’re very forward, here. Their style of picking up women is so forward it’s both disconcerting and oddly refreshing. One man in particular asked if he could teach me a traditional African dance sometime, and when I told him I had a boyfriend at home, he didn’t waver. “Psh,” he said, waving his hand dismissively, “he is in America. This is Uganda. You should get a Ugandan boyfriend.” At which point, he tried to come with me back to the hotel and Morgan had to swoop in and save me.

Men aren’t the only ones who notice me, though. When I walk down the street, everyone stares. Children get especially excited when they see me. They call out from the side of the street, “Munu, munu, munu!” which is Acholi for white person. Several of them have come up to me to touch my hands or arms, convinced white skin feels different than black skin.

Sometimes, though, it gets really tiring. Always being stared at is a constant reminder that no matter how much I learn about Ugandan history, no matter how much Acholi I speak, no matter how long I stay here, I will never be able to blend in, let alone look as though I belong. Simply because of the way I look, I will always be a tourist.

I felt even more out of place when I began my homestay this past Saturday. Dr. William had talked up homestays a lot. According to him, everyone would want to see me and talk to me all the time, and I should not expect a moment to myself for a very long time. Families would want to show me off to neighbors and friends, so I should expect to meet lots of new people. Also, odds were that they would cook me  a special meal the first night, which might include a gizzard, which I would be given and expected to eat as an honored guest.

As the pick-ups drew nearer and nearer, I was more and more anxious. I never make a good first impression, so I wanted to very quickly get that part over with so I could actually start charming my family. Dr. William only told me a little bit about them: my homestay mother was a woman named Grace, who was a journalist, and she had small children around. I had really been hoping there were little kids in my family, so I was really excited.

However, it wasn’t Grace who came to pick me up. It was a man, maybe two or three years older than me, whose name was Michael. Whereas everyone’s families had wanted to sit down and talk to them for a bit, Michael just asked where my bags were so he could take them out to the car. He seemed even more soft-spoken than most Ugandans I had met, so understanding him was that much more difficult.

Dinner that night was also nothing like I expected. I didn’t have to eat a gizzard, thank God – but I had groundnuts, bread, a banana, and water. Since in was raining, Michael and I ate in relative silence on the porch, and no one else was around. After dinner, I went to sleep in Michael’s room, since mine wasn’t ready for me yet.

The weather was nicer on Sunday, and people were outside in the yard when I woke up. I met a few smaller children, who kept calling me either Catherine, the name of a previous homestay student, or muzungo, which is Kiswahili for white person, but after a while, they went off to play or do chores for their mothers, so I was left alone again. Michael was doing chores all day, and Grace was still nowhere to be found.

At this point, I was feeling distinctly unloved. I was trying not to feel ungrateful; no one had been mean to me, or seemed resentful I was there, and I was being fed and given every consideration Ugandans give to a guest, but I was left very much alone, I felt out of place, and was being relatively ignored, for the most part. My apprehension at having to spend the next four weeks living there was only growing, not easing, with time.

Then, on Monday night, I was up nearly all night throwing up. I don’t have malaria, which is good, but I have low blood pressure (whatever that means) and my white blood cell count is up, which means my body is definitely fighting off something. What that is, though, I don’t know.

On the whole, I’m feeling really alienated. Not enough time has really passed to become really close with any of my fellow students, and I am just feeling really out of place in every capacity. Sometimes it’s easier to deal with than other times, but sometimes I just really, really want to go home. This is all normal, though! At least, from what I understand. Apparently, this is all part of culture shock – you get past a ‘euphoria’ stage and then just get angry and sad for a bit. But, it’ll pass. I’m confident it will. Now that lectures have started, and I’ve begun learning Acholi, everything will get better. It has to. I mean, I didn't throw up today, so that's good, right?