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 […]
I sprained my wrist cleaning a cupboard. I’m not normally one to clean cupboards but a layer of mould had permeated our house while we were in Australia. 4 days in to our return to Tanzania, I had a stress injury. And I say stress injury, not just because it’s […]
Elliot has started preschool at an English-medium school where there seems to be a whole lot of Swahili going on. We’re not sure of the exact balance or how much he’ll pick up of what. Since he started 2 or 3 weeks ago, we have been puzzling over the words […]
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 […]
I’ve picked up my book of Tanzanian proverbs again recently, and here are a few about relationships. Damu ni nzito kuliko maji – Blood is heavier than water. This looks like the English proverb ‘Blood is thicker than water’ but it has an extra connotation. On top of the idea […]
This semester I am again studying in the Swahili department at St John’s University where we work. All the lectures are in Swahili so it’s a brilliant exercise for me in listening comprehension, which is appropriate because this time I’m doing a third year course ‘Theory and Traditions of Oral […]
Here’s my impressive contextualised skill: I have learnt to carry things on my head. I am also a complete convert to it. What is heavy in my hands is light on my head. It’s not that hard to do, especially once you work out some of the tricks to it. […]
