We Are Muzungus!

You can hear them shouting it while driving by in a bus or car. You can hear them shouting it from hundreds of yards away as you walk down the dusty dirt road. You can hear them whispering it as you walk by them in the market.

As if you're the first white person they've ever seen (and you just might be), the faces of the children here will go from blank to overjoyed the second they lay eyes on you. The word starts to leave their mouth almost simultaneously. Muzungu! Or, in plural form, Abazungu! Wait, what did you just call me?

According to Wikipedia, the term was first used in the African Great Lakes region to describe European explorers in the 18th century. Apparently the word Muzungu comes from Kiswahili, where ‘zungu’ is the word for spinning around on the same spot. That dizzy lost look was perfected by the first white people arriving in the African Great Lakes.


Well, I'll be the first to admit that the Lands here in Africa are carrying on that tradition. We are SO thankful for the Bergs... without them, we might still be doing circles in Kigali!

As it is, by the grace of God and the guidance of the Bergs, we have made it to Kibogora and are getting settled in nicely. Both Steph and I started our new jobs and the older kids are continuing their homeschooling (another HUGE thank you to Linda Berg!) Brandon has been doing his hour (or less) of school work every day, then spends most of the rest of the day with his new buddy, Levi, who arrived about a week after us.

Saying this country is beautiful is a huge understatement! I am blown away every morning when I look out our window at Lake Kivu, the surrounding rolling green hills, and the mountains in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the background. It's still so hard to believe that there's so much suffering in such a beautiful place.

Unfortunately, we have already witnessed the pain and suffering of both young and old at the hospital. We've seen the poverty stricken people that live just a couple minutes walk from our home. We've seen people that walk for 3 hours each day to get to work, then 3 more hours to get home. Yes, this is a poverty stricken country. Not the $23,850/yr type of poverty you see in America... It's the less than $2/day type of poverty. That means that, even if they work 6 days a week all year long, the majority of the people here make less than $626/yr. Wow.

That's why we're here. No, not to try and single-handedly take on the task of reducing the poverty rate, but rather to improve the lives of as many as we can in any way that we can. When you're used to having nothing, anything is something.

We don't know what all God has planned for us or all the ways he's going to use us while we're here. But if one way is to put smiles on faces by walking around aimlessly, loving, and helping others, then we're proud to say: We are Muzungus!