Speedy Swahili

During the first part of this program, a major focus is learning Swahili. Each day this week, we’ve had 3 hours of intensive lessons. We’re broken down into groups of 4 or 5, and the Swahili teachers meet with a different group each day. The goal is that we become fluent enough to communicate with most people in Kenya during our independent research.

We’ve moved pretty quickly so far. In just three days we’ve moved past simple greetings and introductions to the past perfect tense. A bucketload of verbs and nouns is swimming through my head right now. It’s tough to keep them straight, but here are some favorites that have made me chuckle:

Lala salama: goodnight

Pilipili hoho: bell pepper

Nyanya: tomato

Kahawa: coffee

Mzungo: white person

(tough to forget when you hear it every day!)

Rafiki: friend

When learning any new language there is the potential for blunders; hopefully none of mine are too offensive. My host family told me of a previous student who had been proud to showcase her mastery of the word for milk. But instead of correctly saying ‘mawiza’, she blurted “mah-weezy”—my host brother still uses her pronunciation pretty often.

Overall, Swahili is a fun language. The sounds are just so bouncy—and different from the other languages I’ve studied. I can’t help but smile when I say

“Jina langu ni Jenae. Katika Kenya ninaishi barabara ya Ngong.”

(My name is Jenae. In Kenya I live on Ngong Road.)

I’m a little worried that, when I get back to America, I’ll speak some sort of Swahitalianglish because my brain’s a language-mess right now.