I'm Pretty Daunting on a Bike

I want to share a story that occurred about a month after I arrived at site. We were in the midst of the rainy season. It was a dull, grey day. A day where the rains had come early and the clouds still chalked the sky. I had ridden my bike to Pallisa Town that day and was in the process of riding home.

I was about halfway home when I noticed a couple of children on the left side of the road about 200m in front of me. By the time I reached them, one of them had walked down a path away from the road. Only a young girl I would guess about 7 years old remained. We made eye contact as I rode closer. I continued to make eye contact with her.

All of the sudden, as I was about to pass her, a look of horror and dread struck her face. Her eyes stretched wide as if they were trying to escape from her head. She let out one of the shrillest, most passionately disturbing screams I had ever heard in my life. And she continued to scream. She ran to her friend and grabbed him and hugged him while looking at me and continuing to scream. I kept looking back at her as I rode past only to see her looking terrified and continuing to scream.

I’m not sure whether I was more affected by the screams she made or the look on her face. But it affected me that day. I wondered why she was so scared. What was going on inside her head? What had I or someone else done to make her react the way she did?

I began to realize that some kids are just scared of mzungus. In fact, many of them are. And it makes sense. They’ve never known one of us personally. Many of them, before I came to Kamuge, had probably never seen one up close and in person before. They know what their parents tell them about us and what they see on TV. And they are naturally fearful. I’m not saying that parents trash talk us or that TV portrays us in a scary light. They simply fear the unknown.

Even after being here for a year, the kids still hesitate and fear. On my morning runs I often run a few miles away from my site where I don’t normally venture. The kids are all eager to touch me and see me but many of them are scared. Others just laugh.

That day with that terrified little girl will remain in my memory for quite some time. I was just astonished at the reaction that had occurred within her and had been expressed so passionately. I guess I can hope she no longer has that deep of a fear, being as I didn’t try to harm her and simply smiled at her and proceeded to bike home. I'll never know.