On Being A Muzungu Blackie…

Yes, that’s right. I said it. I had to come all the way to the bowls of Africa to be called a blackie. The only times I’ve heard this word uttered in my presence was while watching Spike Lee films or documentaries on race relations in the Southern Untied States during the Civil Rights Era. The things said to my face in this country sometimes stop my heart. Africans are a very blunt and plainspoken people and to think of it, I should have been prepared as many of my West Indian kin carry the same trait. That being said, I am continuously amazed at their candor when describing people. I asked my night-guard about the Chief Ndake’s wife and he responded by saying, “Who? That fat, brown one?” At first, I thought the man had something against the chief’s wife, but as the weeks and then months passed I realized that this was just a common and innocuous way that Zambians used in describing their peers. Just two weeks ago I attended a meeting in Chipata, the capital of the Eastern Province of Zambia, where a woman was staring at me with an admiring smile. I smiled back at her and just as I did so, she walked up to me and said, “Can I ask you what you eat?” I was puzzled by the randomness of the question so I responded by asking her to clarify what she meant. She proceeded to say, “Well I wanted to know how you are able to look so cute and fat!” Now had this been said at the corner of Yonge and Eglinton in my hometown of Toronto, I would have had to fight my urge to give the young woman a kick in the shins, but seeing that I was at a hotel at the Zambian-Malawian border, I took it as a compliment. Because so many Zambians do not get enough to eat, a little extra weight in the derrière and chest area on woman is seen as attractive. In Canada and I’m sure in most of the Western world, extra weight anywhere on the body must be lost at all cost! We are bombarded with images of men and women who are reed thin with impossible body proportions and we are expected to match them without complaint. Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia are a problem in the West, but when I described this disease to my faithful night-guard one evening, he nearly fell off his chair laughing hysterically. And can you blame him or any Zambian for finding this disease hilarious? Why would anyone starve and/or purge him or herself to be thin? Why waste good food? When you are starving, why would you want to look as if you’re starving?

All last month, staff members of the Nyimba District Farmers Association and myself went into the field to talk to small-scale farmers about the organization and their rights to land title deeds. As part of the sensitization meetings a drama group was hired teach the farmers about the benefits of the joining the organization through a drama presentation. In that presentation, the drama group introduces me as the new Advocacy Advisor from Canada. They then proceed to describe me as a muzungu blackie. The first time I heard it I thought I had heard wrong. Blackie?! I thought the whole muzungu deal is bad enough, but great, now I’m a muzungu blackie– the epithet grand slam! A muzungu as I described to you in an earlier post, is a term used all over Eastern and Southern Africa to describe a foreigner and usually a white foreigner. As I’ve noticed since arriving in rural Zambia, many Zambians are very confused by the fact that I, a 100% Black woman, could be anything other than Zambian. You can always see their puzzled faces when it is explained to them that I am Canadian and that I do not speak Chinyanja. I’ve even had women come up to me and speaking rapid-fire Chinyanja expecting me to respond in equally rapid-fire, perfect Chinyanja syntax. When I do not, it is assumed that I’m pretending or that I’m disowning my presumed Zambian heritage. I’ve even been asked if Chinyanja is spoken in Canada! Seriously! It isn’t until I’m able to describe my entire family tree- my parents and family are the descendants of slaves who were born in Jamaica and immigrated to England then immigrated to Canada where myself and my brother were born, blah, blah, blah!– that they finally, sort of understand. The whole slavery part of the World history lesson was apparently ignored in the rural Zambian curriculum. This is why rural Zambians have a hard time understanding that there are Blacks who are not technically African by birth, but African by ancestry. Another tool used to describe me is by comparing me to Barack Obama, go figure. ‘Kimberly is a muzungu blackie, like, er… Barack Obama!’ ‘Aha! I understand now!’ President Obama appears to be the only other muzungu blackie that rural Zambians know of.

As proud of their heritage Zambians appear to be, there are some alarming and disheartening examples of the negative effect of colonialism on their pride. For example, skin bleaching is a major problem here in Zambia. Every other woman, and sometimes man, has taken to bleaching their skin in an effort to look more attractive. Many of these men and women are extremely attractive as it is, but for whatever reason they feel that the lighter they are, the more handsome or pretty they will be. Last month I was having a conversation with an NGO worker about the weather in Nyimba. It was a particularly hot and sunny day. The NGO worker told me that I needed an umbrella to protect myself from the sun. ‘The sun will ruin your lovely skin’, he said. I responded by asking him if he thought my skin would burn. He said, ‘No, but it will get darker and trust me, you don’t want to get dark, do you?’ You see, the lighter your skin, the straighter and longer your hair, the closer you resemble a Caucasian- Caucasian being of course the optimal standard of beauty. Weaves and wigs are in abundance here in Zambia and I suspect across this continent. There are many Zambian women whose real hair has remained a mystery for years, if not decades. Little baby girls are encouraged to wear braid extensions and weaves- anything that will hide their naturally short, tightly coiled hair from the public eye. It’s sad really; Zambians are truly beautiful people without any of the alterations they think make them look beautiful.

At times being a muzungu blackie has it’s advantages and disadvantages. When I went to get my visa papers sorted out at the local immigration office, I was treated very, very well- although I suspect it was because the immigration officer was trying to get my number. My British colleague however, was treated poorly and was ignored whenever she had a question. There is definitely racism in Zambia- don’t ever get it twisted. Due to the tumultuous racial history of the Southern African region, many Africans harbour some animosity toward Whites- even if the White person in question has never given any indication that he or she is a racist. I’ve heard that this is definitely an even bigger problem in South Africa. On the other hand, when things go awry or if a certain quality of service is expected and not delievered, I’m treated as if I should expect this because I’m Black, just like the Zambian. No internet in the hotel that advertised it had internet- you should have known that it wasn’t going to work. Who do you think you are- a Muzungu? Ha! No more Bream fish at the restaurant- of course not! This is Zambia! What were you thinking, blackie? I’ve been to restaurants in the capital, Lusaka where a Caucasian was served before me even though I had ordered my food first. This, however, is not exclusive to Zambia or Africa (Cuba, anyone?).

This blog entry actually stemmed from a conversation I’d had with one of my former co-workers in Toronto. She had said to me that it would be incredibly interesting to document what life would be like as an African-Canadian living and working in the continent of your ancestry. Interesting and enlightening, indeed.

Chinyanja: Chinyanja is a Bantu language spoken throughout most of the Eastern, Lusaka Province of Zambia and parts of Malawi bordering Zambia.