Double Your Nyanja! Muzungu (white person/foreigner) AND Njinga (bicycle)

Foreigners in Zambia, even if you don't learn "Muli Bwanji? / Bwino" ("How are you? / Good"), you will know this word:

muzungu.

This word means YOU. Many of us believe that muzungu means "white person," with Asians often grouped together in there, too, but some Zambians will insist that muzungu simply means "foreigner." But you'll also hear light skinned "bantu" Zambians being called "muzungu," as well as white Zambians. A black Zambian can even be called "muzungu" for dressing or talking like a "foreigner." So, perhaps we can just allow the definition of muzungu to be vague.

Now, muzungus, please heed my advice: you must learn more words in Nyanja than just "bwino" and "muzungu"! Here's a little story about why...

Before I knew the 100 or so nyanja words that I know now, (I better start learning more, or I will run out of blog posts!), I used to think, every time I heard the word muzungu in my presence, that the Zambians around me were speaking negatively about me. I would get paranoid. Sometimes I would get so exasperated with people "talking about me" and talking TO me, that I would retaliate. ("Why are you talking to me? Is it because I'm white?") And, the frustration of hearing "muzungu" spoken in my presence, but not TO me, inspired me to learn one of my favorite, though not-entirely-true, Nyanja phrases, "Nimvela chinyanja," meaning, "I understand Nyanja."

Here's a word for you, to learn, which helped take the sting out of "muzungu" for me, "njinga." It means "bicycle."

(Here's another picture of some muzungus on njinjas, in Meheba Refugee Settlement featuring muzungus: me and Cody, with bantus: Olila, Kwase, and some other great friends, I'm sorry, your names are not coming to me right now. Give me a break - this is from 2006!)

Last blog post I showed some pictures of different kinds of katundu that people carry using njingas in Zambia.

If you really want to have a good bicycle experience in Zambia, look no further than Chipata. Located in the Eastern Province of Zambia, near the border of Malawi, Chipata is like the Amsterdam of Zambia, in terms of bicycles. There are bikes everywhere! Those Chipatans must have very strong leg muscles, because it is also quite hilly, mountainous, even.

Photos courtesy of Jeana Hickling:

One nice thing to do in Chipata, is to take advantage of the njinga taxis. For less than a dollar, you can sit on the nice padded carrier on the back of an nginga and have the driver pedal you to your destination. (This photo courtesy of our friend Reinier van Oorsouw, though I found it in a Google search!) Notice the nice, comfy, padded carrier...

During one trip there with my sister Jeana, we rented a couple of personal njingas. While taking a little ride, I heard someone by the road say, "Muzungu achova njinga."

Now, if I would have only known the word muzungu, I would have heard this: "Muzungu blah-blah-blah blah-blah-blah, and would have assumed that the guy was making fun of me, and might have even gotten mad. But, instead, I understood that all he was saying was, "The foreigner is riding a bike," which makes perfect sense! I WAS a foreigner in Chipata, and I WAS riding a bike. (Also, please note, it is not uncommon in Zambia to hear people state the obvious. For instance: I'm washing my clothes. My housemate walks up to me and says, "You're washing your clothes?" Hey, that's one way to make conversation.)

The moral of the story is, when you hear the word "muzungu," the person speaking COULD be saying something harmless. Heck, they could even be saying something NICE. And then again, they COULD actually be making fun of you. The only way to know is to learn Nyanja... or just ask what they said.

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Jeana achova njinga ku Chipata...

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As a side note, you may have issue with being called muzungu, simply because you don't think it is nice to be singled out because of race or ethnicity. Here's another great reason to learn Nyanja, or other local languages. It can empower you to express these feelings! Some dear friends of mine, John and Jolie, became fluent in Bemba (the OTHER main Zambian language to learn) and Swahili when they were working in a refugee camp. (By the way, I found this AWESOME while simultaneously being mad and jealous because I wasn't and am still not fluent in any Zambian language. .... Confessions!) The kids in the communities we worked with would chase us saying "muzungu!" over and over again. I remember John explaining to the children, in a language they could understand, that they should call him "John" or "friend" and not "muzungu."

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I came across this list of bike-friendly cities. We're very proud that Cape Town is there representing Africa, but would love to see Chipata on the next list!

http://matadornetwork.com/trips/the-worlds-15-most-bike-friendly-cities/

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Here's an article about Chipata, complete with a slideshow of njinga pictures!

http://www.streetnewsservice.org/news/2011/march/feed-271/the-death-of-zambia%E2%80%99s-iron-horse.aspx

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Vocabulary:

muzungu (moo-ZOOn-goo)- foreigner, white person. Slang: light-skinned African person, or African who "acts" white.

bantu (BAHN-too) - in Nyanja, "people." Also describes a general group of language/ethnicity that spans across Sub-Saharan Africa, differentiates "black" Africans from Africans of Asian/White/Arab/etc descent.

Nimvela chinyanja (neem-VAY-lah cheen-YUN-jah) - I understand Nyanja.

katundu (kah-TOON-doo) - luggage

njinga (n-JEENG-ah) - bicycle

kuchova (k00-CHOH-vah)- to ride (a bike)

Muzungu achova njinga (moo-ZOON-goo ah-CHOH-vah n-JEENG-ah) - The foreigner is riding a bike.

Muli bwanji? (MOO-lee BWAHN-jee)- how are you?

Bwino (BWEE-no) - good