Liking Only Those in Your Eye

The more usual sort of contrast, that between commendable meeting of expectations and condemnable failure to meet them, is seen in the clearly disapproving characterization of a particular sort of participation in relationships: Apenda mtu matoni (lit. He or she likes a person [while he or she is] in [his or her] eyes [i.e., sight]).

This, informants told me, refers to a person who likes people and pays attention to them only when they are with her (it is used most for women) and forgets about them when they are not present. Some informants say the characterization means the person has no real commitment to anyone and treats everyone basically the same. The implication, I was told, is that people should differentiate between those who are closely related (by kinship or, less, neighborhood) to them and those only distantly connected and that the salience of a relationship should not depend wholly on the presence or absence of those involved in it.

Informants are unanimous in saying that liking those who are in sight is a negative trait and that people would be quite angry if they knew someone was using the phrase to characterize them. An important quality of this phrase is that, unlike shibana, it focuses on a person rather than a relationship. This, in fact, is characteristic of most of the terms concerning meeting or failing to meet expectations. By focusing on individuals, the implied evaluation becomes forceful to the extent that people wish to avoid being unfavorably characterized. Thus, the implied model not only formulates and displays valued expectations and saliences but does so in a way that can promote conformity to them.

A related and highly similar cultural model to the one found in the "liking those in sight" phrase occurs in two proverbs, one that states the understandings abstractly and one that makes an accusation against a particular person.

The abstract statement is made in a proverb quoted at the beginning of chapter 4: Mla nawe hafi nawe ela mazawa nawe (lit. He [who] eats with you will not die with you unless he was born with you).

The understanding here is people who are "born with you," mainly your

nuclear family kin, will stand by you, unlike those who share your largess but who have no strong tie of kinship. Informants say that the message is that it is a mistake to treat everyone the same, especially to waste your resources on "strangers," since only close kin are committed to you. The proverb, like the accusation that someone has no lasting affection, emphasizes the virtue of differentiating between those with whom one has lasting ties (i.e., of close kinship) and all others.

The same message is contained in an unusual proverb used as criticism of whomever the user wishes to name for neglecting their close kin while being generous with "outsiders": [Someone's name] ni uvuli wa mvumo hufunika walo mbali (lit. [The named person] is [like] the shade of the Mvumo, it covers those who are far away).

The mvumo is a tree with a long, branchless trunk and a crown of branches and leaves at the top so that it gives no shade near its base but only at a distance. This proverb says that the person it names gives his good things only to those who are distant from him while neglecting those near him. This message is the same as that seen in the previous two statements, but here it is a culturally constituted trope for use against a named person.

Informants agree that this proverb would not be used in the presence of the person named and that that individual would probably not find out the comparison had been made. Community members agree, however, that those who hear the comparison involving another would be likely to consider who else, including themselves, it might apply to.