Prairie Dogs Redefined

When Anna studied abroad in Germany last year, one of the program coordinators encouraged the students to compare their experiences in Germany to those they would have at home, to think of things in Germany as things in America, just redefined. So the girls and I have taken to saying ‘blank: redefined’ pretty often. Hopefully Gabbi and I can put together a picture post before we leave to demonstrate some of the hilarious and significant ‘redefined’ moments we have had. But here’s a snapshot.

Every morning, the four munus leave Hotel Diamond around 8:10 a.m. for our daily walk to work, which is about three blocks away. And every day without fail, we have an audience of small Acholi children to accompany us. They only know a few English phrases (the main one being “Munu, how are you?”) which they scream at us repeatedly in really high pitches, not ever waiting for us to answer. In a lot of ways, they’re like prairie dogs. Not physically, of course, but if you’ve ever seen prairie dogs at the zoo (or the wild which would be really neat), you know they stand on their hind legs and emit high-pitched squeals to warn each other of danger. The Acholi children also stand on their hind legs (duh) and emit high-pitched squeals to alert children further up the block about the coming munus. I don’t mean to imply that the munus are a danger to the children – I promise we have no plans to hurt anyone. I also don’t mean any harm in comparing the children to small animals. Actually, for another animal (or movie, I suppose) comparison, every once in a while we get this creepy, almost whispered chant of “munu, munu, munu, munu …” sort of like the Jaws attack scene (duh duh, duh duh, duh duh ...).

I think what surprises us the most is that they haven’t gotten used to us. We pass them two, sometimes three times a day – so after 23 days, that’s at least 46 times. I suppose we should feel honored and loved that they still pay us so much attention. Hopefully I still feel this way in another thirty five days.

*** munu = white person ***

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