KAMPALA, UGANDA — I do not know who taught the children of Uganda to wave exuberantly at white people. I wish I deserved their excitement. Though we are still an anomaly in the country and the stares are understandable, it is the happiness that puzzles me. I cannot shake the feeling that there is something amiss with the image that all whites are a cause for jubilation.

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Michael Wilkerson

This boy puts on an acrobat stunt to impress the traveling reporter.

Though children in Kampala and some of the larger cities are more hesitant, it is an uncommon trip to outlying towns where the journey does not provoke stares, waves and smiling cries of “Mzungu! Mzungu, how are you?!” from nearly everyone under the age of 12. (Mzungu means “white man.” While I originally thought it meant “stupid white man” I have been informed that either I was simply imagining the connotation, or it was being applied with other surrounding words that I didn’t recognize.)

These few words often seem to be the only English these children know; they are sometimes as young as three or four. As I walked in one small village in the East, a few kids ran up and took my hands, walking with me as they repeated “Mzungu, how are you” several times each. I responded with an even wider smile than the one I had already been carrying. But when I spoke aloud beyond saying hello and broadened my questions to “how old are you,” and “what is your name?” I was greeted by a shriek and the children bolted away. I cannot be sure whether their departure and accompanying screams were because of sheer delight or stark terror at the unknown words I spoke.

The children in Kampala are not so easily impressed. Most do not go as far as yelling out or grabbing my hand, but the effect is still noticeable. Last week I decided to walk home from work and overtook two boys on their way home from school who could have been eight and ten. I was moving more quickly than they were and as I came from behind the younger one heard my steps and turned his head slightly. After seeing me in the corner of his eye he did a double-take worthy of a cartoon and stopped short, staring with an open mouth. His companion also halted a few paces ahead and stood looking back. I smiled and greeted them, but the only perceptible movement was a widening in their eyes (shock?), so I continued on my way.

The excitement kids seem to get from seeing me passing nearby appears doubled when I respond and acknowledge them, something I guess not everyone bothers to do. “I’m sure you’ll make their day, and probably their week” a Ugandan friend chuckled as I waved back emphatically out of the car window at a small, smiling girl walking along the road with her mother, both carrying something on their heads.

If something so easy as a wave or a smile can make someone happy for even an hour, it seems almost immoral not to do it, and I never hesitate with a grin and outstretched arm. But as happy as I may make them in that instant, overall I know that I stand unworthy of such adulation and have to question if am letting down these children by accepting it. What makes me so special, the fact that I am white alone? I must admit that I feel guilty about the celebrity treatment I have often been given.

Is it because the Ugandan friendliness toward visitors I have experienced across the country starts at youth? Is it because mzungus are generally thought to be rich and powerful (and unfortunately, compared to most Ugandans, often are)? Is it because we are still a rare sight to many, especially in the less populous areas, something one can go home and tell the family, “Guess what I saw today?”

It is certainly not just because we are foreigners. Are Indians, Kenyans or Ethiopians greeted with the same beaming faces of children running to hold their hands? Certainly not the high voices trilling “Bazungu.” No.

As far as money, true, the majority of the donor money comes from predominately white Western nations, and most of the foreign NGOs are run by citizens from these places. But when the most expensive cars and biggest and fanciest villas in the country are also owned by these people who are supposedly here to help, one must wonder when this current attitude of happy greeting will give way to full scale resentment.

I am reminded of George Orwell, a British author who grew up in colonial India. In his 1937 novel, Burmese Days, he wrote of the British colonies, “the lie is that we’re here to uplift our poor black brothers instead of to rob them.” Have things really changed so much in the intervening 60 years since he wrote? In my experience they have not.

Aid money these days cannot seem to be given away fast enough, and most of the white businessmen in Uganda are quite well off. But what is the cost to Ugandans? Despite smiles, goodwill and decades of built-up guilt, in many cases white people are making things worse.

There are strong arguments that foreign aid and even investments can perpetuate the problems of developing countries rather than help them. To begin with, aid money props up corruption by allowing officials to get away with misusing money that should be going to their constituents. With donors to fill shortfalls there is less need for accountability. This week millions of dollars were taken out of the Kampala City Council bank account by one of its officials with no documentation or reason for the withdrawal, but the government is not particularly concerned.

On a more personal note, the NGOs themselves (both foreign and home-grown) often take the jobs because of high international pay scales instead of an actual desire to help. Every so-called aid worker I see driving a Land Rover and living in Uganda like royalty — with the requisite servants and entourage — makes me cringe. An examination of most NGO budgets makes it clear that administration rather than actual projects takes the bulk of the funding. If Tony Blair’s proposal to double aid to Africa is out of guilt, he must make sure any further aid does not continue to fund a modern colonial ruling class.

At Stanford, the strong desire for social action and helping others must be carefully channeled. Many student groups raise money for the very organizations whose ineptness and money wasting I have witnessed first hand. It is important for everyone who wants to help Africa to realize that raising more money is not always the answer. Every school built by a student-founded group takes pressure off of what are generally bad governments.

So as to the children, I wish I could fulfill their expectations. I wish that I was rich enough to help them personally. I wish that I really was someone to celebrate seeing or that this excitement about whites is because we are truly here to help and not to rob. I wish that all of our foreign aid money and NGOs were really making a difference in their lives. But the guilty feeling will not go away.

I do not know who taught the children of Uganda to wave at white people. I wish I deserved their excitement. In the meantime, all I can do is keep waving back.

Michael Wilkerson (Class of 2009) is spending the summer as a journalist in Uganda. Send him your ideas on saving Africa at mwilkers@ stanford.edu.