30 August
Posted By Sika on August 31, 2007
Michelle and I had a discussion today about certain behaviors that we don’t necessarily interpret correctly. Michelle was talking about how she ignored someone who was shouting, “Hey you! You!” to her and only after she walked on without responding, pissed off, did she realize that people say “you” to address people in Chichewa and Chitimbuka (the main language up in the north), and so maybe the rudeness was added by her own cultural filters (to understand why that would make someone genuinely angry, you have to understand what it’s like when people see you and turn and stare even as they’re riding a bike in the opposite direction; when people literally yell to point out your foreignness to you; when children appear to be friendly and then mob around you saying, “Give me my money” “Give me my ball” “Give me your bag;” and you don’t know which of these behaviors are legitimately rude and which just get lost in the cultural translation.).
I told Michelle that I had a similar experience when Nancy was showing me some parts of Lilongwe that I had so far missed. We were leaving a bookstore when this man hissed at us. I know that people hiss here to get your attention, but I can’t help my reaction. That sibilant sound crawls over my skin and anger boils up in my gut before I even realize to what I am responding. The sun suddenly seems oppressive and the dust more dusty and more irritatingly red and my feet are grimy and I can’t get the dirt out from under my nails and I haven’t had good food in ages and I’m thirsty and god damn it if I hear another conversation that I can’t understand but I’m pretty sure involves laughing at me or if anyone else asks me if I want to buy some fucking strawberries (If I wanted to buy strawberries I would find you, just like I did the only time I bought strawberries and I think I may never do it again because all the constant haranguing every time I walk down the street has made strawberries anathema to me and I may never eat them again in my life either.) I think I may hit someone and I just want to go home or at least back to the transit house and never leave again. . . .
Nancy, having been here longer, just turns to see for what the man wanted to get our attention. He brought out the bag she had left in the store. He was being kind and a good man, but I hadn’t been able to register that because my cultural filters, which usually serve me well even here, fail me spectacularly in some specific circumstances and read the situation as if I were in America. But I’m in Malawi.
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