When the first explorers visited East Africa, the local Bantu populations called them “wazungu,” from the verb “kuzunguka” (to spin around), as a result of the explorer’s propensity to get lost in their wanderings.
Kivu Ruhorahoza (Grey Matter, MSPIFF 2012) metaphorically explores the status of these aimless wanderers in modern African culture through a series of cryptic narrative strands. Each vignette has three chess pieces—an African man, an African woman, and a Western man— that tackle the sensitive topic of relations between locals and Westerners.