The Origin of Mzungu

Daily Nation Headline

Shortly after moving to Nairobi, I began hearing the term Mzungu.

Language school was located just down the street from a massive economically depressed area called Kibera. I wandered in to check it out. As I walked I could hear people calling out “A Mzungu”. I was naive to go there on my own, but I happened on an outdoor tae kwon do tournament. For five bob, I got to watch a few matches.

Months later, when I moved up to the highlands, I was walking to a colleague’s home in the rural areas. A mother came running out into her yard, toting her small child. She pointed to me. “That's an Mzungu.”

I turned to look.

The child saw my face and wailed.

Fellow expatriates informed me that Mzungu was what we were called by the Kenyans. They warned me about Mzungu prices at the markets and special Mzungu taxes at traffic stops.

I was learning Swahili at a language school run by Kenyans. During one session, they used the origin story of Mzungu to teach us the verb, zunguka (to wander around, or wander in circles). They explained that when the first Europeans arrived in Kenya, they seemed to local people to be in constant motion, flitting about from place to place. Many sources interpret the notion of wandering ‘in circles’ to mean aimlessly.

But Swahili developed as a trade language, and this fact may illuminate the intent behind applying zunguka to Westerners.

During my first year up in the highlands, I sat on a wood pew for two and a half hours listening to a parade of dignitaries drone on in Kikuyu, the local language, which I could barely follow.

Through the lone window behind the podium, I watched the sunlight recede. I had arrived in my Subaru and worried about driving back along the unlit dirt roads after dark. I fidgeted and sighed; finally, I reached for my briefcase to leave.

I felt a hand on my forearm.

I turned to find the elderly man next to me staring.

“When this one is finished,” he said in Swahili, “we’ll all leave, together.”

I nodded and settled back in my excruciating seat.

During my remaining years in Kenya, I tried to heed that elder’s admonition.

Once, I received congratulations from complete strangers because I attended a three day conference and stayed the entire time. Other Wazungu had put in an appearance, but then departed at their convenience, rather than together.

I’m no expert on Kenyan culture, or Swahili, but it may be this habit of dropping by, like tourists, rather than attending and participating, like a resident, that earned Westerners the designation, Mzungu.