He sits…he waits.

A small piece of cloth houses his merchandise. People walk by, they stop and look at his makeshift shop, they barter they joke, they consider buying a small memento, but he can’t afford to lower his price and the can’t afford to care.

He waits.

The lure of the Tower is too strong. The intoxicating aroma of April in Paris overwhelms the senses. Lovers hold hands walking past him heading north to candlelight on Montmartre. They miss him. Who has time to love when they are busy trying to capture its symbol on camera?

And somehow the waiting is better.

This being my first blog from Uganda, I’ve been trying to find something relevant to talk about. Of course there is the usual travel crap, mishaps and new adventures which are undoubtedly interesting to the people who know me and are great for personal e-mails, but for the rest of you I wanted something slightly more substantial; and then the other day, walking down the dusty road trying my best to get back to where I’m staying without being either a) hit by a mad taxi or boda-boda driver (the infamous motorcycles that drive people all around the city or b) have the entire street stare at me in what is my apparently too revealing clothing (note: my dresses go down to my knees) it dawned on me. Here in Uganda (and perhaps other parts of Africa which I am totally unfamiliar with) there is a term that locals have for white people which called “muzunga”. To the best of my knowledge it’s not used in a derogatory way, and I’m pretty sure historically it actually meant foreigner. Long before leaving Toronto I had a long discussion with a friend who had recently traveled here as to what they might call me, being that I’m biracial. We didn’t quite come up with an answer, but she suggested they might say “half-cast” which again is how they would refer to a local who is mixed race. On my second night here we went to a local bar where after a few drinks I asked one of the guys we were sitting with the muzunga question. After a quick head to toe assessment he had decided I definitely had “muzunga shizzle”. The answer was pretty hilarious but it got me thinking about race politics in this country. Over the next few days I began to notice something interesting when I would walk down the streets. Half the people I walked by would call out “hey muzunga” while the other half would call “hey sista”. A few days later, when describing Stolen From Africa, a friend here asked whether or not Canadian blacks consider themselves African Canadians. Though he didn’t say; I suspected he was asking in comparison to Americans. Truthfully I thought this was an interesting question, because I consider myself black, and I consider myself Canadian, but never have I used the language of African Canadian, and yet I acknowledge that my ancestors were brought to Jamaica via the slave trade. While in the states people come and adopt some form of hyphenated American status, in Canada people seem to be much more deeply connected to their countries of origin; arguably this has a lot to do with the way the slave trade played out in American history vs. Canadian, but regardless it’s interesting to think about. Ultimately, I guess what I’m really thinking about is whether or not there is a difference between the ways in which we, (the African diaspora living in Canada) relate to Africans as compared to the ways in which Africans relate to us. I can’t speculate on what my experiences would be like if I were not mixed race, but being here so far has certainly caused me to begin rethinking the assumed affinity between the descendants of those who were Stolen From Africa and those who remain.

What do you think?