Every day as part of our Swahili homework, we write a journal entry about what we did that day. I thought I’d post an English translation here as a way of giving a window on what an average day looks like at the moment. Plus, it should give an idea of some of the things we can say in Swahili!
21st February 2013
On Thursday I woke up at half past six but Elliot was still sleeping. I got dressed, boiled the milk and ate breakfast. Then Elliot woke up and I breastfed him. I didn’t check email because I didn’t have any internet credit but I made bread, did the dishes and played with Elliot. Mama Velo didn’t come because she has typhoid. We have given her the money for medicine. Arthur went to pick up Nicholas and after they returned at nine o’clock, Nicholas taught us Swahili. Elliot was cranky during class and didn’t sleep so I felt a bit stressed.
After class we ate lunch and went into town. Elliot slept in the car. First we drove to the Zantel shop to buy internet credit then we went on foot to the market. I carried Elliot on my back. We bought 10 bananas, 5 mangos, 6 avocadoes, a pineapple, a container of spinach, a kilo of sugar and a tray of eggs. The men at the market think Arthur looks like the Barcelona soccer coach Guardiola.
We returned home and I washed the fruit and cooked banana muffins. At 5pm I listened to Arthur read the Bible while I fed Elliot his dinner. Arthur gave Elliot a bath and read him a book and I breastfed him and Arthur put him to sleep. We ate rice and beans for dinner and watched an episode of ‘Alias’. (It’s a show about a spy called Sydney Bristow.) After that we did our homework and I brushed my teeth and read my book and went to sleep at quarter past nine.
Categories: Tanzania Uncategorized Written by Tamie
Tamie Davis
Tamie Davis is an Aussie living in Tanzania, writing at meetjesusatuni.com.
Meet Jesus at uni 
nothing really to comment, just wanted to say I LOVE reading your posts, seeing your fb updates and photos (and I never comment because don’t want to seem stalkerish!). Love your perspective on mission too and your cultural observations. I prayed for you all tonight and looking forward to see how God uses you in Tanzania :)
Wow Tam! This is a pretty impressive set of homework! Except the rice and beans. Yech!
Thanks for posting this! Is internet credit expensive? Could you give a rough estimate of how many Tanzanians would have internet access? (and would most use internet credit?)
You pay for what you get with internet credit. Ours cuts out most afternoons and we’re with one of the more expensive companies. We both have a dongle and get 5G each for AUD12 (AUD24 al together.) There are others that have smaller download amounts with poorer access that are much cheaper.
I don’t feel qualified to talk about how many Tanzanians have internet access but I asked Mama Velo and she said it’s normal for Tanzanians to have internet access.