Terrifying

One of the blessings of Masaailand is that tourists are rarely seen. Maybe they come to the Masaai Mara, but the Kajiado district is not at all frequented by tourists. As such, just saying 'that mzungu' is enough for everyone to know who you are talking about. People actually get confused because they think either Julia or me is Jennie, the previous intern. After all, we look the same, since we are all white and everything. Then again, maybe this is not a bad thing, because itprovides Africa SOMA with an apparent consistency that it otherwise somewhat lacks. Anyway, the point of this all is that being a mzungu here is extremely alien.

Having said that, I made a child cry today. Two toddlers walked up to me, one greeted me, shyly replying epa to my greeting. Then the other kid figured he was expected to greet me as well, and was terrified by the idea of me touching his head. So he started wailing, and ran to his father. I actually had to leave the room because he could not be comforted with me around.

But not only do Julia and I terrify little kids. Even the animals here are scared of us. Yesterday a donkey walked off the road as soon as we approached, walking into all the other donkeys, just to get away from us. Kinda depressing...

Anyway, people do get used to us, and by now they have a lot of fun hearing us reply in KiMaasai, or greeting them properly. So it gets better, I guess.