Dumb Things Nancy has Done or Said in Africa: Part One

So I’ve said and done some pretty dumb things here and I thought, in all fairness, I should recount my mistakes as well as my triumphs. It’s part of the cultural experience, right?

From least dumb to dumbest:
10. 1st Time I Washed my Clothes By Hand: My sister stared in horror as I weakly scrubbed random parts of my shirt and then wrung the water out inch by inch. My brother’s 24 year-old friend fell out of his chair laughing. I pretended to ignore them, not in the mood to be patronized to. My brother’s friend told me I wasn’t getting the dirt out of my clothes that way and I retorted I was doing fine by myself. He disagreed and demonstrated, according to him, the “right” way to do it. I must admit that his way was better. Considering he’s been doing this all his life and I was just in a bad mood, I quickly adopted his methods and can now wash my clothes by hand. Kind of.

9. Walking in on My Brother in the Bathroom: Third day with my family, I went to the bathroom to shower. The bathroom door is always shut. I knocked but my brother said something from across the hall, trying to warn me to not open the door. My brother in the bathroom also said something. But people here don’t speak loudly ever, even in urgent situations like these, and with noise coming from both sides of me, I didn’t understand what was being said. I opened the door to the picturesque sight of my brother, who I have only known two days, sitting on the toilet. I backed out quickly and had to force myself to make eye contact with him at breakfast. What a great first impression to make on my family.

8. “Can I Take a Picture?”: We were warned to always ask people’s permission before we take a picture of them. My Ugandan brother Dean told me he gets mad when foreigners take pictures of him without asking. Well, 3 weeks into the homestay I cooked dinner for my family and wanted to record the event. I brought out the camera and asked Dean if I could take a picture of him, to be polite, you know? He burst out laughing. He said it’s fine to take pictures of people you know, family and friends. He shook his head at my fumbling, awkward question and I felt like an idiot.

7. Nakivale Refugees: On our last day in Uganda, on our way to Rwanda, we stopped at a refugee camp. We split into two groups. One group talked with a small group of Rwandan Hutu refugees, many of whom are suspected of being genocidaires. The other group talked to a large group of Congolese refugees. I was in the Congolese group and only heard about the Hutu group. Two days after the refugee camp, we met our Rwandan families for the first time. And on that first night, I mentioned I stopped in Mbarara and visited Nakivale. Don’t ask me why I felt the need to include this information. Really, I shouldn’t have. My brother David took the bait and asked if we talked to Hutu refugees. I told him part of our group had. He asked me what the refugees said about why they would not return to Rwanda. Now I knew I was in a tight spot – his voice was full of contempt. I told him the half truth: that the refugees were afraid to return because they thought the government would arrest them and torture them to admit to something they may or may not have done. My brother’s observant and judgmental smile, suggested volumes about his opinion. “Rwanda is safe. They should return. Rwanda is safe.” I had nothing to say to that so we sat in silence for a few seconds before Mommy was kind enough to change the topic.

6. C’est bien and c'est bon: C’est bon and c’est bien are not interchangeable in French, but it’s tricky to figure out when one is used instead of the other. I knew there were multiple instances for when you used c’est bon, but I came down with amnesia and just stuck to what I remembered: c’est bon is for food. But there were other times I would accidentally switch them up. My mommy is too sweet to correct my horrible, ridiculous, amaterurish mistakes (really, I learned this in French I). So for a month and a half I would make mistakes with the two before I started to clear up the instances when one is used instead of the other.