Kiswahili & Juice

My Kiswahili (what “Swahili” is called in Swahili) lessons, which began the first full day I was in Moshi, have come to be extremely valuable. For approximately $4 per lesson, I get an hours worth of language lessons from Mama Alice, an older woman who also teaches at a primary school in Moshi. My roommates (Angela and Carolyn) and I walk to her house every Tuesday and Thursday for our 5:30 lessons---it’s only about a 10-minute walk from the hostel and a nice evening jaunt, as things have cooled down from the hot days. Typically we are served fresh mango or passion fruit juice---a treat that I’ve come to look forward to. Mama Alice has a variety of fruit trees in her garden so the juice is abundant. To date, the most helpful Kiswahili lesson has been learning verbs. That brought everything else together and I felt the communication channels open right up! The trickiest thing, however, is to follow her prescriptive directions on when and how to write down what she’s teaching. For example, when she dictates “dash, dash, dash” you are not to write “…”. What she would like to see is “____”---she’ll double-check to see that you are doing that correctly, otherwise you get in trouble. I learned the hard way!