A Makua in Mbuyuni
By Danielle Chipman
Makua is a word in the Tshivenda language that refers to white people, and I spent three days in a rural South African village called Mbuyuni being primarily identified by this word. It was strange to be in a situation where my race was my defining characteristic. I have been in similar situations during my travels to Ecuador and Guatemala, but I was still struck by a sudden awareness of how being a white person in the United States often lets me ignore my skin color, which is a luxury that many Americans and South Africans don’t have. At no point in Mbuyuni did I feel that I was negatively judged by my race, though; race just seems to be something that South Africans are very accustomed to noticing and discussing. South Africans use race as a descriptor in the same casual way that we would use hair color, height or gender.