Polite and unnoticeable

During a call with a government agency with whom we partner on some activities, a Tanzanian colleague introduced my American colleague Kate as having been ‘polite and unnoticeable’ when they would have first met her a while back, when she was new to Tanzania.

I snorted and had to mute and then hide behind my computer screen until the tears stopped rolling, as I share a room with the colleague who had said it. Which basically took all day as I kept finding it highly ridiculous and amusing whilst Kate and I laughed about it in a side conversation on WhatsApp. Unnoticeable!

Can you EVER imagine a man being described in such terms? The patriarchy is running amok in Tanzania, although it wasn’t meant unkindly at all.

I even cried with laughter in the tuk tuk on the way home. I don’t know why it tickled me so much but it felt therapeutic to have one of those uncontrollable laughing fits, so rarely encountered after the frivolous days of youth.