ndaho umukara!

i go to Kigali 2 or 3 times a week. this means that i walk from my house to the bus-stop in Butare town between 6:30 and 7:30 am, depending on the time of my first meeting in the city. Butare is about 130 kms from Kigali, which makes for a 2 hour journey by bus.

when i go to Kigali i always seem to happen upon the same group of primary school boys. the boys are dressed in their polished school uniforms – crisp white collared shirt with the school logo on the breast pocket, beige shorts, white socks and black shoes. they range in age from, i’m guessing, ten to fourteen years of age. when they see me dragging myself to the bus-stop, they greet me in chorus. ‘bite muzungu’ (hello white), ‘uraho muzungu?’ (how are you white?), or ‘amukuru muzungu?’ (what’s up white?). i always reply ‘ndaho umukara! (fine blacks!). we all laugh as we pass each other on the street. this has gone on at least a dozen times by now

muzungu is used as a descriptor by Rwandans to identify white-skinned foreigners. when I lived in Kenya, it was more of a derogatory greeting that suggested the dislike/distrust of whites. the different usage of the word muzungu in Rwanda and Kenya is a combination of many factors, including colonial context, but I digress!

one morning last week when i was heading to Kigali for a 9am meeting, i ran into my trusty crew of school boys. they greeted me, uraho muzungu! i replied, ‘ndaho muzungu!’. the group stopped in its tracks, looked at me most quizzically; i looked back at them bemused by their reaction. then, in their clean and shiny uniforms, they all fell on the dusty ground laughing like what i had just said was the funniest thing they had ever heard! having a bus to catch, i said, ‘you guys are crazy!’. as i started to walk forward towards the bus-stop, one of the bigger boys got up, brushed the dirt off his clothes, and said in a very serious tone of voice, ‘madamu, we are not crazy, we are Rwandese…’.

i can’t wait to run into these guys again so we can explore the meaning of that sentence!