An expat friend who has lived in Tanzania longer than I have mentioned the other day that she had been asked for the Swahili for ‘comfortable shoes’ and had found it weird. There’s a literal translation you can make (viatu vya kustarehe) except no one would ever say that. You […]
Story 1: Msikwao is a young girl, early high school age who is seen at a river breastfeeding a child. The boy who sees her tells his father who gathers the village elders to interview her. She says she’s looking for her grandfather, and they question her about her past. […]
As a little girl in the west, the stories you hear are of princesses. Though this trope is being critiqued and perhaps modified, it is still the case that traditionally the girls in these stories are sweet, beautiful, compliant, and often awaiting rescue. They look for the prince in the […]
In the English dictionary, ustawi (ooh-STAH-wee) is prosperity or welfare; mafanikio (ma-fa-nee-KEE-oh) is accomplishment or success. The latter is a very popular topic for teaching in Tanzania. The former does not feature as much, but a long-time missionary suggested it to us as an alternative to mafanikio to distinguish prosperity […]
With my current lack of brain power, I expected my Swahili would take a hit, that the sluggishness I feel in English would mean remedial Swahili. Yet, the opposite has been true. I am unable to focus in English. (Posts like these ones which posted recently were written before Red […]
This awesome woman is our Swahili tutor Pendo. She’s doing a PhD in Swahili linguistics. In the picture, I’m holding a journal article in which she’s written an article. She’s published multiple articles. Fluency is about so much more than grammar and vocabulary. It’s about knowing the smoothest way to […]
Particularly among university students, there is a desire for self-, life-, and nation-improvement. Sometimes that can feel very overwhelming, whether it’s in the pressures of exams or the bigger picture of being one person trying to make a difference in their nation. These proverbs seem particularly relevant. Haba na haba […]
