Mukwano.

Children’s excited shouts of ‘Mzungu’ greet me everywhere I go. On my walk to and from school I pass a house where eight children live. Every morning and afternoon without fail, they will come running up to me chanting "Hi Mzungu! Hi Mzungu". I have met them with smiles and open arms, some of the brave ones have started running up to me to shake my hand. Once I pass them and say goodbye, they begin their chant of "Bye Mzungu – bye Mzungu"; I can hear it all the way until I reach the corner, give them one last wave, and turn out of sight.

So many times I just want to pick them up, ask them their names, laugh with them, and actually be known to them as Erika rather than as Mzungu.

Every Thursday I spend four hours at a school called The Chain Foundation. This is the highlight of my week. Chain is a place filled with joy where many marginalized children are treated as equals. It is the only school in central Uganda where visually-impaired students sit side by side with their peers sharing the same desk space and receiving the same instruction. It is estimated that there are over 400,000 blind children within Uganda. Very few of those are given an education; they are often kept behind doors or are isolated in blind orphanages. Because of this, it is incredible to witness the integration of these blind students in the regular education classroom and to see the mutual respect students have for one another.

This Thursday I worked with three blind students, Sam, Peter, and Suzan. My role was to merely dictate the questions which were written on the board to them as they typed it on their Braille writers. These students are incredibly bright and are usually the first ones done with their work in the class. During some down time with Suzan I asked her about her family, her brothers and sisters, and her childhood. As we talked she gently placed her had in mine and asked me if she could call me “Mukwano”

Mukwano means friend.

Sitting side by side with this precious girl, I looked down at her hand in mine, looked at her face and was struck by the reality that this girl had asked to call me her friend. This girl did not see the difference between my skin color and hers which I saw as I looked down at her hand in mine.

I felt a release from the title ‘Mzungu’ which has followed me everywhere and realized that for this girl, for this one precious girl, I was defined by something greater than my white skin and foreign accent.

I was no longer Mzungu, I was known as Mukwano.