I wish I'd written this piece from Kampala

Uganda: Of Poor Uganda Kids Who Wave At Every Mzungu


The Monitor (Kampala)

OPINION
August 15, 2006
Michael Wilkerson


I do not know who taught the Ugandan children to wave exuberantly at white people. I wish I deserved their excitement. The stares are understandable, but it is the happiness that puzzles me.

I cannot shake the feeling that there is something amiss with the image that whites are a cause for jubilation. Though children in Kampala are more hesitant, it is an uncommon trip to outlying towns where the journey does not provoke stares, waves and smiling cries of "Mzungu! Mzungu how are you?" from nearly everyone under the age of 12.

These few words often seem to be the only English these children often as young as 3 or 4 know. In one small village in the East, a few kids ran up and took my hands, walking with me as they repeated "Mzungu, how are you?" several times each. I responded with an even wider smile than the one I was already carrying, but when I spoke aloud beyond saying hello and broadened my questions to "How old are you," and "What is your name?" There was a shriek and the children bolted away.

I cannot be sure whether their departure and accompanying screams were because of sheer delight or stark terror at the unknown words I spoke. The excitement from seeing me appears doubled when I respond and acknowledge them, something I guess not everyone bothers to do. "I am sure you will make their day, and probably their week," a Ugandan friend chuckled as I waved back emphatically out of the car window at a small smiling girl walking along the road with her mother.

If something so easy as a wave or a smile can make someone happy for even an hour, it seems almost immoral not to do it, and I never hesitate with a grin and outstretched arm. But as happy as I may make them in that instant, overall I feel that I stand unworthy of such adulation and have to question if I am letting down these children by accepting it. What makes me so special, the fact that I am white alone? I must admit that I feel guilty about the celebrity treatment I often receive.

Is it because the Ugandan friendliness toward visitors I have experienced across the country starts at youth? Is it because Mzungus are generally thought to be rich and powerful (and unfortunately compared to most Ugandans often are)? Is it because we are still a rare sight to many, especially in the less populous areas, something one can go home and tell the family, "Guess what I saw today?"

True, the majority of the donor money comes from predominantly white Western nations, and most of the foreign NGOs are run by citizens from these places. But when the most expensive cars and biggest, fanciest houses in the country are also owned by these people who are supposedly here to help, one must wonder when this current attitude of happy greeting will give way to full scale resentment.

I am reminded of George Orwell, a British author who grew up in colonial India. In his 1937 novel Burmese Days, he wrote of the British colonies, "the lie is that we're here to uplift our poor black brothers instead of to rob them." Have things really changed so much in the intervening 60 years since he wrote? No.

As exemplified by the Global Fund fiasco, aid money these days cannot seem to be given away fast enough, and most of the white businessmen in Uganda are quite well off. But at what cost to Ugandans? Despite smiles, goodwill and decades of built-up guilt, in many cases whites are making things worse.

There are strong arguments that foreign aid and even investments can perpetuate the problems of developing countries rather than help them. Aid money props up corruption by allowing officials to get away with misusing funds that should be going to their constituents. With donors to fill shortfalls there is less need for accountability. Last week it was reported that millions of dollars were arbitrarily taken out of a Kampala City Council bank account by one of its officials, but there has been little public reaction.

On a more personal note, the NGOs themselves (both local and foreign) often seem to take the jobs because of high international pay scales instead of an actual desire to help. Every so-called aid worker I see driving a Land Rover and living in Uganda like royalty makes me cringe. A look at most NGO budgets makes clear that administration rather than actual projects takes the bulk of the funding. If Tony Blair's proposal to double aid to Africa is out of guilt, he must make sure it does not continue to fund a modern colonial ruling class.

At Stanford, many student groups raise money for the very organisations whose ineptness and money wasting I have witnessed first hand. It is important for everyone who wants to help Africa to realise that more money is not always the answer. Every school built by a student-founded group takes pressure off of what are generally bad governments who shouldn't need other people to do their job in providing services.

So as to the children, I wish I could fulfill their expectations. I wish I was rich enough to help them myself. I wish I really was someone to celebrate seeing or that this excitement about whites is because we are truly here to help and not to rob. I wish that all of our foreign aid money and NGOs were really making a difference in their lives. But the guilty feeling will not go away.

I do not know who taught the children of Uganda to wave at white people. I wish I deserved their excitement. In the meantime all I can do is keep waving back.

The author is an undergraduate at Stanford University, spending the summer as a journalist in Uganda.