The Andrew Clark Field Guide to Kiswahili, Vol. 1

Christmas was good, but not too much going on now, so I thought I'd bring you the Andrew Clark Field Guide to Kiswahili. The following guide will help you understand the basics should you ever come to Tanzania or at least understand the occasional Kiswahili word I am sure to through on my blog now and then. the ACFGK goes way beyon an ordinary dictionary to give you the nuance behind what you're saying and hearing.

Habari za...: Habari literall means "news." However, it is used as a greating asking you how your doing. The word after za can be anything such as Habari za asibuhi (how's the morning?). The third word doesn't matter really, you always respond with something like nzuri (good) or salama (safe). Responding anything other than the positive only leads to a lot of annoying questions you don't want to deal with. Of course, we in the Peace Corps take this to ridiculous levels like "Habari za cheeseburger." Salama, incidentally, is also the name of the leading brand of condoms, which I think is appropriate.

Shikamoo: This is a greeting you give someone older than you or in a position of authority over you. It literally means "I hold your feet." The response is marahaba which means "delightful." Personally I don't know what's so delightful about someone holding your feet.

Karibu: This word means "welcome." You will hear it when someone invites you into their home or if you are a visitor or new to an area. You will also hear it when offered something, like food (karibu chakula) or tea (karibu chai) or whatever. Also you can offer somone a glass of tap water and say "karibu amoebic dyssentary." The correct response is asante (see below).

Pole: This word is a way to express sympathy for someone from the trivial to the devestating. If you trip or if your mother dies you'll hear pole. It sounds strange, but it's the correct, polite thing to say in either case even though the best translation I've heard for pole is "it sucks to be you." Again, the response is asante (again, see below).

Asante: This means "thank you." You also use it as a polite way to refuse somethign you're offered, whether it's more tea or if some guy on the street is trying to sell you a spear or something. In the case of responding to a pole or an annoying vendor, the best translation is "screw you!"

Safi: This is one of my favorites. It means "clean" but is used as slang like "cool" in America. If something's really cool you say safi kabisa which means "completely clean." The PCVs tend to love this one and I know we will confuse and/or annoy a lot of Americans with exchanges like the following:

Someone else: How was the food?
Me: It was completely clean.
Someone else: But did it taste good?
Me: I just said it did!

Fupi: This means "short." No big deal, but I just think it sounds cool.

Another great thing about Kiswahili is that there are many cases where it doesn't translate directly into standard English, but it does translate into Southern English. For example:

ninyi: y'all
Habari zenu: How y'all doin'?
Kule: over yonder. This actually is the best translation because pale means "there" but kule means a less specific "over there somewhere" kind of thing, so the best term for it probably is "yonder."

So that's it, you're first few words of Kiswahili. You already know as much as a Kenyan! Look forward to further installments of the Andrew Clark Field Guide to Kiswahili.

Merry Christmas from Bukoba

It's Christmas Eve in Bukoba, and most of the lake PCVs are up here to celebrate Christmas. I took a long ferry ride across Lake Victoria to get here yesterday, but it's certainly been worth it. The PCVs up here have great sites and it's really beautiful on the western shore of Lake Victoria.

This will be the first Christmas in my memory that I haven't spent in Polk County with my mom's side of the family, so that's real sad. I hate to miss the annual event, but I'm glad I'll at least get to spend Christmas with some people I'm close to. Have a great Christmas in Columbus and I'm sorry I can't be there!

Not too much to report right now. Things at site are starting to feel normal so I'm having an easier time of things but just the same I'm glad to have this little trip. After this it'll be about ten weeks before I'm allowed to leave site again for more than one night. Fortunately now that I have some buddies at the school, that won't be a problem. So anyway, Merry Christmas everyone, and of course, Happy New Year.

Getting Settled In

It's been about ten days since my last post, but things have been moving at a relatively slow pace. I spent most of my time last week exploring both center city Mwanza and the area around my house. I took some long walks along the lake and discovered a very beautiful beach. I have also met most of the teachers at the school and am getting along quite well with them, particularly a few who are around my age. It has been a strange time because for the first time since July I've been living at a place on my own. The privacy's nice but the quiet in a new place can sometimes be disconcerting. Fortunately I have a very nice house with electricity (most of the time) and running water (at least some of the day). That has made certain things a lot easier. Hauling water can really be a drag, especially those who walk a kilometer a more to the lake to carry it home by the bucketload.

The school seems very nice, but I haven't met any of my students yet since they are on break. I have met some of the older students who are in A-level (for advanced). The way the system works here the secondary school is divided between O-level (o for ordinary) for four years and A-level for two. Very few students make it to A-level, and they are on a different schedule than the rest of the students. I will be teaching O-level.

I am taking a trip up to Bukoba for Christmas. Bukoba is a fairly good sized town on the western shore of Lake Victoria. I'm taking a ferry up there with Kathryn, a volunteer from my training group whose site isn't too far from here. We're visiting Rob, Aaron, and Jodi, all from our training group and all in Bukoba. The five of us, plus Patrick (who won't be making the trip) were the six who had all the time in Dar and Zanzibar. We were around each other constantly for awhile, and then all of the sudden I was on my own, so it will be good to see them again. Of course, now it's already getting a lot easier than it was last week since I'm making friends with some of the other teachers. Before too long I'll actually start preparing to teach. The school opens one month from today.

Oh, also my new address is:

Andrew Clark
PO Box 4058
Mwanza, Tanzania

Getting mail always makes my day, so send something! Only 80 cents from the US. Have a merry Christmas.

I'm Home!

So I finally made it to Mwanza, which will be my home for the next two years. The area around my house and my school are incredibly beautiful. I'm a 15 minute walk from Lake Victoria, and I can take a short hike up a hill and get a great view of the surrounding area and watch the sun set over the lake. I have electricity and water, but right now the rainy season is late in arriving so the lake is really low. This means that my water is intermitent. Still, since I seem to have water at least some of every day, I can stock up and I won't suffer too much. I hope the rains come soon though, apparently the lake is the about lowest people around here have ever seen it.

My house is perhaps a 20 bus ride outside of the city center. Mwanza is not a beautiful city, in fact it suffers from some horrible urban sprawl, but I like it anyway. There's just something about the activity of cities I find appealing. There are a few really nice restaurants that are too expensive for me to enjoy often. There's even a casino in one of the nice hotels. A great thing about Mwanza is that you can take a ferry from here to other parts of the lake, including some beautiful islands, and hire tours of the Serengeti, which is fairly close. I'm looking forward to having a chance to do that sometime. I've met all the volunteers in the lake region now, and they all seem like good, interesting people. Of course, there was a lot of turnover in this region this time as six of the nine volunteers here were in my training group. Some who are on other parts of the lake I won't see too often, but two of them are really close.

I've met a few of the teachers at my school and they are very nice and helpful. I think they will be good to work with. Classes don't start until January 21, so I have lots of time to get used to things and get to know the area. Readjustment will take a little time since I've been surrounded by people, either my host family or other trainees, ever since I've been in country. Of course, there are lots of people around where I live, but I'm living alone. It will be quite an adjustment, especially all the cooking. I have a kerosene stove and a pretty nice kitchen, so I'll be alright. Real soon I'm planning on posting some pictures both from training and of the area I live. I'm in town now, but I hear there is internet at the university right by my house, so I'll probably be able to get online more frequently than in training. Of course, I will actually be working and have limited funds, so no promises. As for now, it's kind of a relief to be at my site, but I am a little nervous now. I'm now on my own and it's up to me to do my job and make some sort of difference here.

Zanzibar

So it's my last night in Zanzibar. I've had a blast hear. We spent two nights on the northwestern coast of the island on possibly the most beautiful beach I've ever seen. Even though there are four hotels right in a row, the beaches are very far from crowded. Each hotel also has a restaurant and bar along the beach so there were a few places to choose from. Today we came down to Stone Town, which is a very old town with incredibly narrow streets that wind around like a maze. We spent much of the day wandering through them aimlessly never really knowing where we were. Tonight we ate dinner along the harbor where you can pick out some fresh fish that will then be grilled for you. It was pretty nice.

Zanzibar is an interesting place because of the mixture of African and Arab culture. It's also the most touristy place I've seen so far in Tanzania, so the locals are pleasantly surprised when you speak Kiswahili to them. I'm feeling a lot better about my language skills because as long as I try not to be too deep, I have very few problems communicating with people. I feel confident that I will continue to improve even though the formal lessons are over.

Tomorrow we go back to Dar where we will be until we leave for our site on Thursday. It will take maybe 2-4 days to get to Mwanza. I've been having a great vacation but I'm ready to get to site. I will probably have an opportunity to post again before I leave.

I'm Going to Mwanza!

I'm sorry I haven't updated in awhile, especially because a lot has happened since I last posted. The biggest, most exciting news is that I will be in Mwanza. Mwanza is the second largest city in the country and is located right on Lake Victoria. I will be living inside the city limits about eight kilometers south of city center teaching at Nsumbe Secondary School. It is a fairly large school that is in the process of converting to an all-boys boarding school. It also has a very good reputation in Tanzania, so I'm excited at the opportunity. I'll be living in a three-bedroom house on campus that is within walking distance of the lake. My neighborhood is also home to a university and a seminary, so there will be a lot of students around. Mwanza is the point where many Serengeti tours leave and there is also a national park on an island in the lake you would take a ferry to from Mwanza. Supposedly it is an amazing park that has a population of chimpanzees, but is the least visited of all of Tanzania's parks because of the relatively remote location. Mwanza also has some great restaurants including Indian and Chinese places right on the lake. For those of you who may wish to visit, I will have lots of space and you can fly straight into Mwanza. If you're a little squeamish about living the Tanzanian lifestyle, they will soon complete a five-star hotel 2-3 km from my house that will be ridiculously cheap by Western standards. So basically, karibu Mwanza (that means you're welcome in Mwanza)! I am extremely happy about my site.

In other news, Thanksgiving at the Ambassador's place was great, and the food was great, while it lasted. Fortunately I wasn't at the back of the line and I got my fill of turkey and dressing. I did feel pretty bad when I found out it had run out, but there wasn't really anything I could do. I must say though that it was real cool of the ambassador to invite Peace Corps somewhere where there was an open bar.

This past Monday I moved out of my host family's home. I will miss them, especially little Tina, because they were really great to me. Before long I'll post some pictures of them. The day after I left was the swearing in ceremony, so I am now officially a Peace Corps Volunteer. It's a pretty exciting thing. I am so, so glad that training is over and I can get on to my site. Even better, I get a week-long vacation first.

Right now I'm in Dar es Salaam. They are driving us out to our sites and all the cars are out taking other people now so the six of us in the lake region have to wait for them to return. Fortunately PC is covering our living expenses while we're here. Yesterday we went to a beautiful beach resort outside of town and stayed in these great huts right on the beach for $8 a person. They also had a bar and great food. The beach was absolutely beautiful and the water was great. We had a blast, but it's going to get even better because today we got permission from the country director to go to Zanzibar! We don't need to be back here at the PC office until Thursday, so we're going to take the ferry out to Zanzibar for a few days. If you don't know anything about Zanzibar, look it up on the web. It is an amazingly beautiful and exotic island off the coast of Tanzania. Zanzibar was briefly an independent country before it joined with Tanganyika in 1964 to form Tanzania. A lot of PCVs take vacations out there and it sounds pretty amazing. Since over land I am about 2-3 days away from Dar where you take the ferry out there, it will be pretty difficult to make the journey out there later. I'm glad I have the chance now.

Sorry this jumped around a lot, but a lot has happened. I'll try to post about Zanzibar and first impressions of Mwanza ASAP. I should arrive in Mwanza on the 10th or the 11th. And seriously, anyone's welcome to come. I am not free to travel during school, but I am always free to have visitors for up to one month.