My Encounter with America
Part 2: Cultural clash
By Zadok Ekimwere
zomwere@hotmail.com

Editor's note: Zadok Ekimwere is from Uganda. He is presently a USC graduate student in journalism. These articles are about his first experiences with Americans.

We continued to visit our American teachers' house every evening. Apart from the skin color differences, we behaved like small boys with two big sisters. We took turns teaching our cultures and languages. This helped minimize the cultural and racial barriers between our teachers and us.

Linda, a Peace Corps volunteer at my school in Uganda, started coaching us in foreign behaviors like romance, kissing, and how to speak to girls. We felt extremely shy and embarrassed with this treatment. When the drum for lights out sounded we would scamper out of the house unceremoniously. If lights out found you in a wrong place, you were dismissed from school summarily.

Little did we know that one of the prefects used to sneak into our midst and attend our innocent "lessons." He was a big boy in the senior class who thought Linda was in love with him. One day Satan tempted him to tell Linda that he wanted to stay the night in the house. This gave Linda a very rude awakening. She gave him marching orders out of the house. When he did not move, she ran straight to the headmaster's house and reported that a mad boy had invaded their house.

The boy was arrested and confined in the headmaster's strong room till morning. He feigned madness when he was taken to a mental clinic for a checkup, but they did found him of a sound mind with an IQ above average. He was dismissed from school and that was the end of our close interactions with our American teachers.

When the school community learned about what had transpired, there was a lot of anger expressed against the American lady for what they called provoking the "hot- blooded African youth." When I pondered this incident later, I found it to be a classic case of cultural collision caused by naivete, ignorance, and recklessness by the lady and the boy.

The two ladies were joined by two male American volunteers who also opted to live in grass thatched African houses. They were even more adventurous and outgoing. They had just returned from military service in Vietnam. In fact, one had a big scar on his right temple and used to wear his khaki military uniforms.

An association of volunteers from Uganda, Britain, and America built a new dormitory for the school. It was given a romantic name, VUBA, an acronym for Volunteers of Uganda, Britain and America. The dormitory still stands as a symbolic monument in remembrance of the two young Americans.

As I worked with the two young Americans, I began to wonder when I would visit America. My dreams about the country began to form. In 1980 those dreams came true. Operations Crossroads Africa sponsored me for a three- month study trip in the U.S., which also coincided with the 1980 congressional and presidential elections.

(Next week:

Arrested in New York)