Saturday, November 19, 2011

Muzungu Magic

Last night after dinner the discussion of airplanes came up. My host father is very interested in technology and science and when I revealed that the windows on airplanes do not open because of physics he was very intrigued. A whole set of other questions ensued and soon the conversation had to switch the French to compensate. Is there food on planes? Where do they make the fire? Which naturally led to the impossible conversation of trying to explain microwaves. The whole thing got very silly very quickly because even using words my host father knows in French I was unable to convey the function and reality of a machine that is so far from their normal. Finally it was decided that both airplanes and microwaves were ' muzungu magic.' This term has now come to encompass all forms of technology or things that I do which are foreign. Its actually quite amusing. Flashlights, computers, and swiss army knives have also become a part of this category.

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