culture differences

some things here are very different...
a few days ago we went to the market by the lake shore and all of the sudden an angry crowd formed around a man, he hopped into the lake and started shouting back at everyone, someone hopped up on a boat near him with a big rock aimed at his head. he escaped by swimming to another shore further away. Deus said he was a theif that stole lumber and if they'd caught him they would have beat and maybe killed him. We were actually filming something at the time so Deus got the incident on video. I asked him what the man was saying and he said "please don't kill me ... if you're going to kill me please just do it now, get it over with"
i was glad he got away.
also here it is not rude (at least not that rude) to run around calling me a white person. the word for white person is muzungu (moo-zoo-n-goo) and everywhere i walk, especially in more rural areas children yell at me, muzungu, muzungu and wave. one little girl was walking past and she stopped right behind me and stared for a very long time. eventually i turned around and pretended i was taking her picture and she left. yesterday there was a little girl not even two years old I'd think with a cute little beanie saying muzungu in the cutest little baby voice ever. I almost melted. I don't know why but I find the term really funny so I walk around laughing whenever I hear it. I think because I don't expect to get so much attention for my skin color.For now its funny but it might get old..
also I noticed that gender here dictates a lot of what you do. the woman cook all the food and yet they sit outside on the ground to eat while the men eat inside. I asked Deus why they eat seperate and since sometimes what is he says is a bit blunt do to translation differences he answered "tradition.. and it makes the men feel powerful". He is interested in doing womens groups and yet he told me he slapped his ex-girlfriend when she came to visit so hard her nose bled. I don't think he sees any irony in this.
Another note on children, some of the smaller children are afraid of me because they aren't used to white people. At Deus's bibis house there is a small boy named Stan who everyone thinks is funny to set on my lap because he cries so much. I think maybe another month and he will come around. Also when we took the bus I noticed people just pass their children around with ease. The boy next to me puking into a bag was sitting on the lap of a middle aged man he didn't know the whole time. The steps into the bus are steep and anyone near them would grab all the little kids on their way up and give them a boost. People passed off babies when they needed their hands to get their tickets out of their purse. I think trust in Tanzania is a bigger issue though. Even if you don't know someone you can tell them you'll pay them tomorrow and they are okay with that. Last night we went to the bar and I had to pay in US dollars, they said, okay just come back tomorrow and trade us for shillings. Its very different than in the US. I'm not sure if being trusting is such a good thing or if it makes you a fool but it seems to be a part of what got me here.