“Why are you shouting so much?” I asked, interrupting a girl of about 25 in a grocery store in Tanzania’s Dar es Salaam. She was yelling at the store owner over an issue that I didn’t fully comprehend; nonetheless, I found it disrespectful that a young girl would raise her voice at an elderly gentleman in this manner.

She was dressed stylishly in a blue sleeveless top and a pair of flowing pyjamas. She wore several chains with African symbol pendants around her neck and carried an indigenous handbag—typical of many of the youth in Tanzania. “It’s a generation gap problem,” she told me. “He’s my father, so we argue all the time,” she confirmed, appeasing my anxiety. I couldn’t tell if she was a local or tourist. She looked Indian but spoke with an American accent, rolling her R’s and slurring the rest of her words. I almost thought she wasn’t sober.