most things just aren’t worth getting angry about

I was telling a friend of mine, who had been in Zimbabwe with me, that I was going to change my name to the Mr’s last name, and that a few people were surprised.  I said that I didn’t think this would fundamentally change ms, that it was really just a name and if it made my daily life easier, what’s the big deal?

She pointed out there were a number of those instances in Zimbabwe, and after our conversation I started thinking of some of those things more lately.

The Ministry of Education required that teachers wear skirts/dresses or dress shirts/ties for teaching.  This was a little impractical in the African heat, but almost all of us complied.  Some volunteers, being essentially free employees to their school and a little above the law, were so incensed by such antiquarian rules that they defied the rules and went to school in less.  I’m not sure what they proved, except that maybe Americans have no regard for standards.  There were a lot of instances where we (me included!) thought that if Americans did something a certain way, it must have been the “better” way.

The order of hierarchy in social society seemed to be: white men, white women, black men, black women.  It was something that I felt probably I should have been upset about, but I wasn’t sure how - should I protest the men/women hierarchy? Or, when I was served ahead of a black man, should I protest that whites are seen as higher than blacks?  Why was I as a woman more important than this guy’s wife as a woman?   In order to be invited back into peoples’ homes and form the bonds required of successful volunteering, I politely accepted the finest piece of chicken and the hand-washing bowl first.  By the time I was there two years, though, I was being served with the rest of the women (although I was served first among them) - I had assimilated enough to be thought of as one of them.

I had a definitely American way of speaking when I first arrived, and many people couldn’t understand me.  There were some words, my name for example, that if I pronounced the “correct” way, people had no idea what I was talking about.  Marie became Mary.  My last name, let’s say it’s Orson, became Oseni.  I could have continued to protest for two years that my name is Marie, damn it, but it would have gotten pretty tiring.  And they all knew me, they often called me murungu (white person), so what did it really matter if my name was Marie Orson or Mary Oseni?

So I guess I feel the same way about changing my last name to Samson (not the Mr’s real last name but close enough). Does it really matter if I’m Marie Samson or Marie Orson?  Is it worth getting all bent out of shape about it? Not really.  It’s just a name, and if it makes my life easier in the long run, it’s worth it changing it to me.

I

Posted by Marie on May 4th, 2008 under Uncategorized

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