It’s good to be back. You may remember me, Katie Garner, from such chronicles as ‘How to eat your way around New York’ in 2010, or ‘How not to navigate the Congo’ in 2012, or ‘Various shades of coffee shop’ in Portland, Oregon 2015. Now, I’m back with East Africa 2017. Obviously not all of East Africa, but Tanzania, Zanzibar, Rwanda + Burundi is quite hard to say quickly and in 6 different languages, so for now East Africa it is.
A candid snap of Katie by VICOBA founder David Clemy.
As Kelly, my AR boss and I explain to friends here, that in the countries we’ve come from it’s about 1-4 degrees Celsius; we watch horror quickly cross each face. It then becomes entirely apparent that the two women with alabaster skin, one red head, one pale — oh-so-pale-Britain-in-winter-pale — only need to glance at the sun to lobster-up.
Which is the other major issue here. We’re Muzungus. White people in a context where that holds a certain value and meaning.
Being astonishingly British, I find myself wandering around apologizing to everyone. When you’ve colonized as many countries as we did, it’s easier just to issue a blanket apology and hope for the best.
A photo by Katie of Batwa leader Evariste Ndikumana dancing for joy during the corn harvest.
But I can’t do that, because it contradicts the entire intention of being here. This trip is to visit extraordinary friends and recognize each other as equals.
We don’t do aid, that would put us on an unjust pedestal. We do apologize when necessary and we do keep learning at every turn.
Brennan Manning put it beautifully in the context of faith, but I think it’s just as powerful in an international context, ‘Faith is just one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread’. Friendship is, through my lens a lot like that.
Please don’t get me wrong, I have so, so much privilege. To suggest otherwise would be naïve and unjust, but the way I carry myself and my privilege matters. Privilege is real; and whether you are in the UK or USA or, East Africa, it’s what you choose to do with it that matters.
Katie at work with Craig Spinks in Dar Es Salaam.
So we’re here. Reconnecting with our friends and finding ways to use our privilege not for control, but for encouragement. Sometimes this looks like seed funding for a women’s bakery, sometimes it looks like training, such as the Teach Rwanda pre-school training, sometimes it looks like women with small business initiatives in cultures where this isn’t yet the norm.
Most of the time it’s listening and talking and listening. And eating goat brochette. Naturally.
And so every country that we visit, I walk away a little more inspired, a little more in love with the beauty and the people, and a little more alive in my own slightly lobster-colored skin.