"MZUNGUUUUUUUU!"

Not enough time to really express what life is like here in East Africa except to say that a) it's my guess that my bag ain't coming at all at this point, and b) Tanzania is the shizit.

Since Internet is hard to come by and even slower than The Bob's 40 time, I'll be brief.

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My whiteness is very apparent here. The Swahili word for white boy is "mzungu." Plural, "wazungu." Here is a typical sequence for when Hunter, Meghann and I walk down the "road" (a dirt path that cars sometimes traverse) in our home village of Tengeru:

"Mzungu! Mzungu!"

(we wave) "Mambo zenu?"

(children giggle) "Wazungu! Wazungu!"

(we laugh and volley it right back) "Waafrikani! Waafrikani!"

Mzungu isn't derogatory -- it's just what I am. I am white. So we refer to ourselves as wazungu with pride. In fact, I'm trying to convince Meghann, the coolest boss I've ever had (probably because she's only 24 and shares dish washing duty with her employees), to let me paint "NYUMBA WA WAZUNGU WAZUKA" on the gate of our house:

HOUSE OF THE CRAZY WHITE DUDES.

"No," is her quick reply, every time.

"Why not?? We ARE wazungu!"

"Because I'm not letting you put that next to our official logo, Bayless! 'CRAZY WHITE PEOPLE HERE.' No."

Other than the fact that I'm still not 100 percent sure the grammar is correct, what's wrong with that?? If these neighborhood kids feel like it's cool to yell "Hey white guy!" at me every second of the day, can I not embrace it? It'd be like me yelling "Black guy! Hey black guy!" at someone walking down the sidewalk in Leave it to Beaver Land, Texas, which is where I grew up, and then that same guy rocking one of those 'X' hats that were so popular during the era when Will Smith was still the Fresh Prince.

Would I tell him he couldn't throw props to Malcolm X? Of course not.

(Quick note: I can't get over the humor of my current situation simply because of how vastly opposite it is from my time in the Balkans. In the former Yugoslavia, I felt like I needed to grab my camera if I ever saw a black guy. Other than random African diplomats, it just didn't happen. Ever. Except for one time when a few Marines on leave from Germany rolled through the Black Catz -- I could see the excitement and bewilderment on people's faces when they saw the dark skinned boy from Mississippi approaching. Being a mzungu in Tanzania is the negative film version Cool Keith experience that weekend in Belgrade).

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The other day a guy got murdered on the road by our house. His crime? Stealing. The way he went out? Some dudes who don't take kindly to thievery beat him, placed a tire full of kerosene around his neck, and lit a match.

It's called a "necklacing" -- I had read about this in my African history class my last semester at UVa, but I thought that only happened in revolutionary South Africa, not peaceful Tanzania.

That being said, it is really safe where we live and the people are more than friendly.

But I'm definitely not about to steal anything.

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The Swahili language is awesome.

The word for dizzy is kizunguzungu. Doesn't that make you dizzy?

All the words that were introduced by colonialism/American style colonialism (the New World Order/globalization jazz) are very straightforward: It's simply the phonetic pronunciation written on paper, more often than not with the "eee" sound attached to the end.

It's the Swahili version of the stereotype that all Spanish words can be formed by saying the English equivalent (+) "oh."

Examples:

komputa
bia
demokrasi
printa
shirti
pencili
And my favorite, bumpastika

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Our neighbor, who is basically the village elder that no one messes with, is named Baba Juma.

Incredible name. The way it works in this society is when you have a kid, you become either "Baba" (father) or "Mama" (+) the first born's name.

The Bob = Baba Elizabeth from now on.

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Baba Elizabeth would not have been happy last night had he been visiting. We were taking a cab from Tengeru into Arusha to get some dinner, and lo and behold, the cab runs out of gas.

We pushed it up the hill, 400 meters, easy. And we got a discount of a few pennies. Such is life in Africa.

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Hunter's name, literally translated: "Mwindiji." (mween die gee)

My name, literally translated: "Hakuna Pwani." (Without Bay)

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More later.