Nilijifunza kiswahili kidogo (I learn a little Swahili)

Mambo!

Poa. Habarie za asubuhi?

Nzuri. Karibu.

Asante sana.

The greetings here make up the vast majority of any given conversation and as such are proportionally important. First you say hello. This applies to everyone—anyone you make eye contact with on the street deserves a full greeting, none of this American, “Hi, how are you?” as you pass by someone not even listening for a response. In Tanzania, you engage in the full greeting. Say hello, listen to the response (which is always some variant of good. A negative response actually doesn’t exist according to the three Swahili speakers I’ve asked. The most negative you can get translates to “kind of good.”), the other person asks how your morning is, respond that it’s good, and then either ask another question concerning his health, or welcome him, to which he responds thank you.

And that is very close to the extent of my Swahili.

I can also tell you my name (Jina lako ni Rachel) and count to 999,999 (theoretically. In practice I can get up to 39 and then I can do 100 to 9,000 though I miss any numbers that contain 40-90.) and conjugate verbs into several tenses. We spent four days in a class room for four hours each day learning Swahili and each afternoon right after class I’d feel confident that I’d learned some good words that day and that I could now hold a simple conversation with someone. And each day I learned over and over again that, damn, people speak fast. As soon as I respond to a greeting of, “Mambo!” correctly and return the greeting, people tend to assume that therefore I must know Swahili well and let lose a stream of unintelligible words and only pause for what I can only assume is my response to some question.

I did have a few successful Swahili encounters this week. On Tuesday, we went to Coco beach which is a beach frequented by locals and very few tourists. Needless to say, our huddled group of pale skin laying more or less smack in the middle of a beach, stood out. And not only our skin color but our gender ratio was quite noticeable as we were a group of six girls and two boys. (Having joined up with the four other Dartmouth students who we are taking Swahili classes with. Two of them are staying in Dar and working at a hospital this summer and the other two are going to be working in western Tanzania with the Jane Goodall Institution.) As we surveyed the beach with the intention of swimming, we tried to determine what the appropriate amount of coverage is for woman while swimming. Men walked up and down the beach, a group of young boys practiced flips and cartwheels somewhat successfully next to us, male venders showcased their wares, but no women to seen. Then, spotted! A bikini top and a knee-length skirt bottom. A few minutes later another woman wearing a one piece suit with leggings underneath. On land or in the water, it appears that women are expected to cover their bottoms. We reevaluated our wardrobe and opted out of swimming.

Several Tanzanians approached us as we sat there sunbathing and struck up conversation. With one man, I successfully navigated the Swahili greetings and even was bold enough to ask his name and where he was from. I know, impressive stuff.

After the beach, we wandered over to the fish market which had all the aroma of a fully functioning market. People and fish were everywhere. (You’ll be happy to hear, Liana, that the fish were all fully dead.) According to an impromptu guide we picked up, the market is much busier in the morning when the boats come in, but even in the afternoon there was still plenty of fish to be auctioned off. Quite a fun place to walk around, but the more shocking and entertaining sight was just outside the market. A man dressed in a snazzy sparkling shirt was talking in rapid Swahili to a small crowd. There was what looked to be a large, two foot long and one foot wide jelly fish balanced on a bucket while another man fiddled with a tarp on the ground. In the next moment we realized that the balloon object was not, in fact a jelly fish, but rather a blown up condom. The man was selling condoms and was apparently demonstrating their magnificent strength. As we watched with barely suppressed laughter, another condom was filled with a liter of water and, for some inexplicable reason, an egg. If only my Swahili was good enough to understand what the seller was saying.

On Thursday after class, the four of us headed out to the University of Dar es Salaam to meet with Dr. Rajabu, an engineering professor at the university who has connections with DHE. The University is huge and sprawling. That’s the best description I can give because we didn’t have time to walk around. The buildings are very open and the apartments for the students are very tall buildings. What a wonderful description, I know. We spent the evening with him talking a lot about what we are working on this summer and got insight into rural Tanzanian culture. As a brief overview, this summer the four of us are working in the Arusha region of Tanzania to promote the production of sustainable cooking fuel in rural communities. The specific fuel we are working with is briquettes (fuel bricks) composed of various combinations of waste agricultural biomass, charcoal dust, and biochar. Dr. Rajabu gave us some survey pointers (essentially don’t trust people’s responses completely, use your observational skills) and a few names of other groups working with cook stoves and biochar.

Friday was market day! Our Swahili course culminated in a trip to Kairkoo market where we spent a few hours wandering the streets. I bargained for a skirt (in Swahili!), had people call after us, “Muzungu! Muzungu!” (yes, I know I’m a white person thank you very much), got a length of fabric for 2,000 tsh (about a dollar fifty) less than my group mates because the seller “liked me” (to which another seller said that the guy wanted to marry me), and got told that I have a good Swahili accent by a man selling Sim cards (why he thought that I don’t know because I had barely exchanged three sentences with him). We finished up the afternoon with a trip to a very touristy beach on an island. A boat took us out to a beautiful point of sand at the tip of the island where a few other tourists were lounging. We had no problem stripping down to our bathing suits and splashing in the water. A gorgeous sunset dinner of ugali (typical Tanzanian dish of cooked corn flour, similar to grits but smoother and served with beans or meat) topped off our last night in Dar.

Yesterday we flew to Arusha in northern Tanzania and we are now settled in the Gateway hotel, twenty minutes outside of Arusha city. The land is beautiful. Mt Maru towers over us, abruptly jutting out of an otherwise level landscape. Everything is green. Instead of grassy yards, many of the houses surroundings have small plots of corn fields. Our hotel is located in was seems to be a rather nice community. To reach our hotel, you turn off the main, paved road onto a straight, bumpy dirt road. Off of that road are several perpendicular dirt roads with rows of houses. All of the houses have tall walls surrounding them though the houses themselves are modestly sized. The flowers and bushes that line the walls are in full bloom.  Last night there was a wedding in full swing just outside our window which was wicked cool. Emily and I went out to check it out around 8pm and met a few locals there who were friends of friends of friends of someone at the party and just wanted to hang out. They invited us over and we chatted with them for a bit. The best piece of advice we were given was, “All Tanzanians are very friendly people, very friendly. But I only trust people 5%.” Ok, note taken.

Whenever I hear of somebody's travels in a foreign country, an often repeated anecdote is the story of the crazy drivers. The narrow streets, the unaware pedestrians, the massive bumps and lumps in the road. I won't generalize and say all Tanzanian's are crazy drivers, but Tanzanian's do have their own particular method of driving. Essentially any object (be it a person, a pika pika (motercycle), a dala dala (one of the micro busses that can fit 40 people on board), a car, a bike, a cart, or really anything else) can occupy and given space at any given time. For the most part, traffic flows on the left side of the road. But if you miss your turn and you're on a two lane divided highway, you can always just do a u-turn and drive the wrong way up the road into oncoming traffic. And no one will honk at you. Bad traffic on the road? Take the sidewalk. There are no traffic lights in the city center probably because the lights that do exist on the larger roads on the outer part of the city and ignored--red light ahead, as long as there isn't a bus physically blocking your way, you're free to gun it. Being on the road feels rather like an amusement park ride. With no safety break.

One last note. Whenever people say that roosters crow with the rising sun are only telling part of the truth. Sure they cry at 6 am. But they also crow at 6:05 and 6:10 and 7:15 and at five minute intervals for the entire day. All in all though, it’s a nice sound to hear after the bustling and dust filled city. We are staying here for at least a week while we work with EARD-CI, an NGO that is a minute walk away, and hopefully play some football. The internet here is quite slow so I can't upload pictures. Hopefully next time. Kwaherie! Bye!