Mzungu: A Notre Dame Student in Uganda

by Michael Sweikar

In the summer of 2002, Michael Sweikar and another Notre Dame student, Andrew DeBerry, embarked on a journey of volunteer service in Uganda. In this book, Michael describes the transition from being a student at Notre Dame to teaching a class of second grade students at St. Benedict's School in Uganda. The book is filled with journal-like stories that portray teaching in Uganda in an interesting, often amusing, and spiritual way. Michael not only relates his experiences, but he also asks some difficult questions that many volunteers face today when they return from abroad. Organizations serving the people of Uganda will receive profits from the sale of this book. Don't miss the section entitled How You Can Become Involved!

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction

158 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2007

Reviews

[Amber · Rating 1 out of 5]

First of all, bravo to Mr. Sweikar for the effort. What his experience taught him, his journal keeping, and his pushing through for publication was a great effort.

However, I found the book difficult to read for a number of reasons. While edited and gramatically correct most of the time, it is suffers from lack of artistic revisions and as such is very repetitive and has over generalized thought processes and experiences. We are shown very little of the experience, told most of it. In other words, it's not really very literary. It is a great window into how most white, christian, college students would experience and approach the summer of service and writing about it. In order to truly be instructional about Uganda, or the life of service, or to be a travelogue or even memoir of experience the journal entries needed to be curated and developed quite a bit more to be interesting to a broader audience.

Additionally, I really struggled in almost every entry to not become very frustrated with the author's referring to Ugandans as "these people" and his refrain of well, that's just how things are "in Africa." Perhaps the author did more research about broader experiences of Africa, but he didn't say that, and since he had only been to small sections of two Africa countries it was difficult to have him not say that's just how things are "in Uganda" or better yet, "In Jinja" which is where the bulk of his expereinces occured. It is not as much telling of Mr. Sweikar as it is of the broader US culture which seems so often unclear that Africa is not a country but a continent. As with as with all contients, there are threads of similarity between the countries but Africa as much or more than any other continent is a place of great cultural, ethnic, lingual, religious, and geographic diversity.

[Liralen · Rating 2 out of 5]

A common problem with published diaries: even if the recorded experience is stimulating and life-changing for the writer, the actual diaries can be pretty boring. They tend towards action—I did this today; tomorrow maybe I’ll do that—rather than description; they’re thin on detail because that’s not what was pressing to the writer at the time. This is doubly true when—as here—there’s no tension to the situation. No deeper exploration of political issues (just an offhand expression of shock that Catholics could prefer Clinton to Bush) or characterisation of the people the author spends time with.

As a private journal, I wouldn’t dream of judging this, but as a published work, it lacks depth. Perhaps if the author had supplemented his journal entries (or, better yet, used them to supplement a more detailed work), done research, acknowledged that Africa is a complex and diverse continent and that his experiences in a Ugandan village are not necessarily representative... The journal entries describe a very specific (narrow?) type of experience, and the book would need more work to be useful to a broader audience.

[Jamie · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book tells the an overall impressions of a young, recently graduated student who goes to Uganda to volunteer with the Catholic diocese. I wish however they would have told the reader on the back cover that it was a religious spiritual adventure instead of a travelogue.

I had no idea that it would be filled with so many "God has a plan," how to be closer to Jesus Christ type of references. Disconcerting to say the least.

Some parts very aptly display the illogical and stressful times an ex-pat can encounter during their time in Uganda. There are also fun anecdotes include. However, I felt like I was reading religious media more than a travelogue as expected. Nothing wrong with that but just be prepared.

[Sheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am still processing my Uganda trip and wanted to read this book in order to get someone else's perspective on the country. "Mzungu" means "white" and kids would always shout that at us as we went by. The guy who wrote this book is much younger and naive than I am, but he still wrestled with the same questions: How much service is enough? Is what I'm doing really making a difference? How do I separate out real friendship from people associating with me because they want me to give them money or help them get to the U.S.? This last question is particularly tricky since Uganda is one of the poorest countries in the world and the U.S. is one of the richest. Seems morally right to help, but how not to get taken advantage of?!

[Laurie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of course I had to read this book- it's about a Notre Dame student who volunteered in Bugembe, Uganda where my husband and I volunteered a year ago. We lived right around the corner from where the Notre Dame students stay and teach. It's an edited collection of his journals when he was teaching in a primary school and coaching local sports teams for 2 months in 2002. So many of his feelings and impressions were similar to mine and it was fun to read about all of his experiences with the culture and area - which are very familiar to me!

[Brittany · Rating 2 out of 5]

hard to enjoy when he constantly mentions "God's plan" and how you need to believe in god to enjoy serving others (I am not a believer though) also hard because he was only here for two months complaining about stuff and I have already doubled that...