MULUNGO! MULUNGO!

The very first Changana (local dialect) word I ever learned was mulungo, the somewhat derogatory term for a white person. And for a while after I first arrived at site, it was yelled at me regularly. I say “somewhat derogatory” because like most other words, it depends on the context. Kids yelling it in my face? Derogatory. Being introduced as one to a congregation of hundreds at my organization’s church? Not. Even when it bothers me, there’s not always mal intent behind it, and usually people simply don’t realize that I don’t like the term.

Being a very small, but very visible, minority has been a very eye-opening experience and frankly, pretty tough at times. Normally it’s easy enough to brush off; I’m quite obviously different, and for many people, I’m the first white person they’ve seen with the exception of some South Africans and Portuguese passing through town. But occasionally it reaches the breaking point, like when co-workers mockingly called another co-worker a mulungo for having lighter skin and compared his arm to mine. And sure, the fact that my pale face was the only thing to show up in a dark picture was funny, but not when everyone else was joking about it in a different language.

No matter how integrated I am, I will always be different. However, now that I’m much less of a curiosity in town, being called mulungo generally only happens when I’m going on home visits in more remote parts of town for the first time. I explained to co-workers who take me on home visits why I don’t respond to the word, and at a meeting with the organization mentioned above I asked people to call me anything else but not that word, and everyone’s been very understanding. Most successful of all was telling kids that they couldn’t color for a day if they said it; after one incident in which all the other kids yelled the equivalent of “OOOOOOOOHHHHHH you can’t color!” in Portuguese, I never heard the word again.