7/16/2007

How do you say "Wash me!" in Kinyarwanda?


Up in the hills, we returned from filming an interview to discover this written on our car. There is nothing racist about it; if you are insulted by hordes of scruffy little children rushing out of their houses and screaming the equivalent of "HEY, White People!" at you, all day long, every day, then you are probably too sensitive to visit rural East Africa. We've been filming in the same district for four years, and there the chorus has evolved and become more personalized. Often, little children we don't recognize at all come hurling out of their compounds yelling "ANNA, ANNA," the name of Anne Aghion, our fearless leader. If you look closely at this picture you will see that someone (else?) has written "Ana" just under the letter "M." This, of course, is how new words are added to the lexicon, and perhaps a couple of decades from now all white female visitors to Rwanda's countryside will be mysteriously greeted by chants of "Anna, Anna."

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