Language School in Tanzania

Dear Friends,
I have finally become a blogger! It seems to be the most efficient way to share news and pictures with you in this day and age.

We can hardly believe that we are 2/3 finished with our Swahili language school! We have one week left. I last wrote you that we were learning numbers. Now that we're quite proficient with numbers, our teacher expects us to use them in incredibly long statements of time. You know how we can say in English 11:35, short and sweet. No such luck in Swahili.You have to say: Ni saa kumi na moja kasoro dakika ishirini na tano. By the time you've said it, another minute has passed and you have to start all over. Our African teacher makes no apologies for these long statements. "We have time" she says. Truly, that says it all! There's never a rush in Africa! To top it off, Swahili time is actually six hours different from our time, because they start counting the hours of the day at 6:00, when the sun comes up. So 11:35 is actually 5:35, in Swahili time. I'm sure that won't lead to any confusion at ALL! :)


It has not been all work and no play here in Tanzania. The monkeys have provided comic relief in the afternoons, when our brains are exploding with new words.

And the flowering trees are gorgeous!

On Friday we got to see some traditional African dances, accompanied by some great drummers. In this picture, the ladies have pots of fire on their heads! I hate to think what would happen if I tried that!

Yesterday we got to go on a Safari to Arusha National Park! We saw giraffes, baboons, lots of zebra, warthogs, water buffalo, lots of flamingos, water bucks, colobus monkeys -- and all this within view of stunning Mt. Kilimanjaro. In much of the park you are not allowed to get out of your vehicle -- they don't want humans changing the ecosystem.

 

One of the wilder species -- with Mt. Kilimanjaro in the background.

Tomorrow we learn the future! Don't you like the sound of that? Stay tuned!

Jan