Hello Mister! Bu Bule & Extra Bule at Large

“Hello Mister!” is the thing a bule—a gringo—hears everyday on the streets. Guidebooks actually refer to it as a noun: how many Hello Misters you’ll hear down a given route. Many Hello Misters on the way to the graveyard.

At the end of the graveyard road, a teenage girl required no translation as she stared at us with flat amazement & addressed someone through the wall of a one-room tin & scrap wood shack, obviously saying, “No, seriously, Mom, you’ve got to get out here & look at this. I swear, they’re right here in front of me right now, hurry. No, wait! They’re turning right, quick! Go out the other side, quick, quick, the other side, you won’t believe this.”

And sure enough, here comes Mom, carrying a baby, all baffled smiles, politely waiting for us to…do whatever it is we do. Maybe ask for directions out of here? What I really want to do is take pictures—for there are many good photos to be had here—but I am (lamely) far too self-conscious to do the completely obvious & expected thing of bules. Because—beautifully—everyone is staring at us, talking about us, waiting with a kind of pitched anticipation. If they had cameras, they would be taking pictures.

Years ago, Evan stopped finding this as interesting as I still do.
We might as well be wearing rabbit suits.

It’s the kind of moment that inspires odd recriminations like: why did I never persist in learning to juggle? These kids would be so happy if I could only juggle. But that’s not really it: it’s just that we’re bules. We don’t belong there. There’s no obvious reason why we’re here. It doesn’t even feel like an encounter between rich & poor (though by many accounts that's what it is), because we are much too alien for that.

I can’t not be a bule. There’s no special way to act or more knowledgeable way to be. But not only am I the whitey-whitest bule ever, I’m aware that right this minute I’d also be fairly dorky looking at home, among my bule friends. Travel clothes, glasses, tweaked out hair.

I think: Well, at least we’re funny. Funny is better than just about every other option for American bules around the world, right? I am listening to our crowd of children, waiting for someone to say the word. The only word I’ll know.

When one of the kids does, I point at her severely—which freezes her in place, a collective held breath—& then insist that my proper name is Bu Bule—Madam Gringo—while they shall hereafter refer to Evan as Mister Extra Bule (a play on Extra Joss, the key mystery ingredient (=mojo) used to advertise cigarettes).
At which everyone (but poor Mr. Bule) cracks up.

Though maybe they just laughed because I spoke to them.
But okay, whatever: laughing is good.