My Encounter with America
Part 1: First meeting with Americans

By Zadok Ekimwere
zomwere@hotmail.com

My first encounter with an American was in 1967. I was a small boy starting my secondary education at Bukedi College Kachonga in Uganda. At the time, there was an American educational exchange program which took many bright Ugandan students in secondary schools to experience what life was in America.

When it was my turn to visit America, my father refused to allow me to go. He reasoned that two other boys from our village, who had been to America, had failed their Cambridge School Certificate exams afterwards. Therefore, in his view, if he allowed me undertake the tour, I would also fail.

I was very disappointed but had to comply. The American system of education was seen in Uganda then as relaxed and full of leisure, compared to the strict British one which Uganda used.

Another program, the American Peace Corps, flooded Uganda with many young American volunteers as teachers. It was through them I got the opportunity to meet an American for the very first time.

To my consternation the teacher at my school was a mzungu (white), moreover a young lady. She was called Linda. Having been brought up under the British education system, I already had a bias that Americans speak through their noses, mumble and chew words, so Africans cannot easily understand what they say. To contain this inherent bias, I sat next to a fellow student who had been through a missionary school of white fathers, to help out.

My first class was a real nightmare. With my bias against the American teacher, I seemed not to follow anything. I was mesmerized by words spewing out of her small mouth marked with red lipstick. She was teaching introduction to the spike abacus.

My friend got fed up with me on the very first lesson because I was not allowing him to concentrate. Rather than continue with this dependency, I decided I should learn to follow the lesson myself. So I shifted to the front row and concentrated. It paid off. Within two weeks I was able to follow my teacher, and at the end of term exams, I performed best, even in mathematics.

Linda had another compatriot called Mabel. These two were unique bazungu (whites). They refused to live in posh modern houses for teachers. Instead they lived in grass thatched houses like in African villages. The only difference was theirs were plastered, had running water and electricity. We admired them for choosing to live like Africans. Not only that, they also socialized with students a lot.

One day Linda invited the class to their house to taste chocolate in the evening. Most of us had not seen or tasted cookies and chocolate. And apart from eating chocolate, she also made us touch her hair and skin to feel how smooth it was compared to ours. This became problematic as told in the next story.

(Next week:

Cultural Clash)