"Good Morning Queen, God Bless"
on Thea's Blog (Uganda), 09/Jul/2009 06:30, 34 days ago
Normal0falsefalsefalseMicrosoftInternetExplorer4/* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;}I love my journey to work. Every day something different happens. This morning a man covered in mud with no shoes shouted,“Good Morning Queen, God Bless!”, which made me smile. When the news about a Briton bringing the first case of swine flu to Uganda hit last week, an agitated young man came up to me and said “swine flu is a disease of the rich,” which I thought was quite a clever observation. On my way homelittle school children sidle up to say “Hello madam, how are you?” with cute, shy smiles. As soon as I turn off the main road on to the panoramic road that I live on, it suddenly feels like the deepest countryside so I’ve taken to greeting everyone I meet. Sometimes I’m brave enough to try alittle lutoro, but usually I stick to English.Apparently the original meaning of the word mazungu was‘he who walks fast.’ This is, I think, extremely apt. I am very much aware of the fact that I speed ahead of everyone else. I’ve tried slowing down to keep pace with Ugandans, but I find I physically can’t. Yesterday I walked back from a meeting with Vickie, and I’d never have believed itwas possible to walk that slowly. After a while I realized that Vickie take a step or two and then rests a beat, another step or two, another rest. It took us about ten minutes to get up a very small hill. It’s going to take some time to adjust to this African rhythm, but probably in a year’s time I’ll be slower than everyone else.