maji ya kunde

Swahili

Literally, “color of cowpeas”, i.e. the color of water when boiling black-eyed peas.[1]

maji ya kunde (ma class, plural only)

This phrase is usually used to refer to skin color (in the context of colorism).

Fritsch, Katharina (2017) “‘Trans-skin’: Analyzing the practice of skin bleaching among middle-class women in Dar es Salaam”, in Ethnicities‎, volume 17, number 6, →DOI, page 755 of 749-770:
They explain: ‘They don’t put Black people, they put people whose skin is a bit lighter, not very dark and not very white. Let’s say we call them ‘‘maji ya kunde’’’—this is the corresponding term to describe Tate’s ‘browning’. In contrast to ‘mweupe’, ‘white’, and ‘mweusi’, Black‘, ‘maji ya kunde’ means ‘light-skinned’, literally translated it describes the color of water when boiling black-eyed peas.

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