Kiswahili!!

Walking to Class

Hello Mr. Monkey

Swahili Word of the Day: Asante (Ah-sahn-tay) = Thank you

So today marks our second official Swahili lesson.  We have already learned so much and are very eager to use our Swahili to talk with others on campus.  We have one professor who directs the class and then have 4 or 5 teaching assistants who aid us in our study.  The first two hours of class are devoted to lecture and role play.  We typically learn a set of phrases or words (today was introductions and greetings) and then are asked to practice them in a group and prepare a dialogue to perform in front of the class.  We get lots of practice and seem to be going at a decent pace.  We get a break after the first two hours of class and then we split up into small groups of 4 students where we sit outside under the trees and practice conversing.  During this time we are also able to ask the teaching assistant about anything we are confused about, or about anything in particular that we would like to learn.  So far, in lecture we have learned basic greetings and introductions (my name is, I come from, I live at, nice to meet you, etc.).  We also picked our own Swahili name and our known exclusively by that name in Swahili Class.  My name is Amina (ah-mee-nah).  I’ll list a few names here to give you an idea about Swahili names: Sauda (sow-oo-dah), Fatuma (fah-toom-ah), Jamila (jahm-ee-lah), Tukae (too-kai), Bahati (bah-hah-tee), Musa (moo-sah), Mika (mee-kah), Siti (see-tee).  Today in our small groups, we learned the days of the week, foods, and how to say “I like….”.  It’s great to have such a wonderful group of students to practice with.  The class consists of ACM Tanzania students, so in total there are about 16 students in the class and 4 or 5 teachers.  We practice lots, especially outside of class when we talk to each other or to people on the street.  It’s nice to finally be able to respond to them when they talk to us!  Just today, I was at the bank talking with a Tanzanian woman and she asked me where I was from.  Luckily, that was one of the phrases we learned today and I was able to say “Nanatoka Marekani” (I come from America).  She was so thrilled that I answered in Swahili!  The Tanzanian people here are always willing to teach us Swahili and often prompt us with the correct response or greeting when we don’t understand them or know how to reply.  It’s so nice that they embrace us wazungo (foreigners).  This afternoon was spent reading, walking to hill park store to buy a cereal bowl (it was 15 cents), and just lazing around.  Dinner was rather unfortunate as we went to the cafeteria only to discover that they were out of food.  We then trekked to the Kiswahili Café, only to find that they were closed.  We finally made it to Hill Park, a restaurant on campus, where they were out of ugali, njegere, and maharagwe, but still had rice and beef stew.  So, we had some of that and it was really quite good.  A nice change of pace from our usual cafeteria fare of rice and okra or rice and peas.  Anyhow, Colleen and I hung out at the Godde’s house for a little while and now I’m back at the dorm.  Looking forward to another day of Kiswahili tomorrow.  Hopefully it won’t seem like four hours long!

Erin