Being Mzungu

I don't know if you ever get used to being mzungu in Tanzania. It translates from swahili basically as 'white person'. Living in Tanzania mzungu pretty much becomes your name. Kids chant it, yell it, adults address you as it, call after you shouting mzungu in your wake.
The kids don't seem to get tired of screaming out mzungu at you as you pass by them on the same road you have walked down for the last 3 months. It seems the novelty for them will never wear off. It's like they have spotted a new species and have to scream it out to let everyone else around know of their discovery.
For them they are just trying to communicate. For me it just got frustrating. It's just that its yelled at you everywhere you go and you can't get away from it. You get it everywhere you go. Sometimes it feels like they are calling after you, whistling to you like a dog.
But the frustrations of being white in Tanzania don't stop there. As a white foreigner you stand out and get stared at and pointed at, kissed at and laughed at. But that's fine and it's to be expected. It's the money thing that's hard to deal with. You' are looked upon as a walking cash machine; because you're mzungu. And i guess in this context we are rich. To the locals we are so rich and it's no use trying to persuade them otherwise. A broke, shoestring backpacker, unemployed, recent graduate with a huge student loan debt does not translate into swahili. As a volunteer you save up all the money you can for a ticket and a program fee and all the other fees to become a volunteer, and after that you think that the all the time and hard work that you've come to give to these people will be enough. But it's never enough. As a volunteer it is hard to acheive anything without money. As soon as you have money to give, things start happening very quickily. Advise to future volunteers: come with money to contribute to projects etc. fundraise beg and ask.
As a mzungu you get asked for money everywhere you go. And who can blame them. Seeing how these people live, they really have to try whatever they can. I think the first english phrase kids learn is "give me my money." i heared that at least twice a day just walking home from work. And it's hard to hear after a whole day of working out how to help these people and building chicken sheds and vegie gardens.
Sometimes it was hard being mzungu.