Wanafunzi

Before the beach, we had our first Swahili class Friday morning. We mostly reviewed things we had done back at Swarthmore. It seems like the class is going to move fairly quickly, which is exciting because we would like to know as much Swahili as possible. On Friday we did greetings, counting, days of the week, telling time, and introductions, so we are very good at saying things like,

Mambo! Jina langu ni Caitlin. Nina miaka ishirini. Sijaolewa.

Which means "Hey! My name is Caitlin. I am twenty. I am not married." Except that Bree accidentally said "Sijalewa," which means, "I'm not drunk yet." We make these kinds of mistakes sometimes.

We also learned that Swahili time is different from our time. (There was a minor struggle over the word "our" in the preceding setence; Caitlin points out that this is only true in East Africa, but Bree and Eleuthera maintain that other places may use different time as well. For instance, Canada is on a 20-hour clock.) The day starts at 7 AM, so that's 1. For any given hour on the clock, Swahili time is the number opposite that. So 9 is 3, 10 is 4, etc. Caitlin inadvertantly insulted the instructor by saying that the US has illogical measuring systems as well–like not using the metric system. People here seem to know both systems, since they are always able to tell us what time it is in a way that we understand.

Kwa herini! 

~B,C,&E 

Kipepeo Beach

We just got back from a lovely (albeit brief) weekend at the beach. It was incredibly gorgeous–we have photos but haven't yet figured out how to post them. Be patient as we learn. Right, but anyway, it was beautiful. It was the first place we (i.e., Bree) had ever seen where the place was as nice as the photos in the brochure. It was the first time in the Indian Ocean for all of us, and it was perfect weather, clear but with pleasantly chilly water. (Bree and Eleuthera point out that the water was actually warm and Caitlin is just used to exceptionally warm water.) There were also harmless, tiny clear (E. says "adorable") jellyfish that kept nudging up against us. We also saw creatures on the beach, including a camel, a horse, and a herd of small cattle. Seriously.

We slept in a banda, a small hut on the beach with three beds, mosquito netting, a fan that didn't plug in, and not much else. It was kind of perfect. (Parents: it also locked and we were totally safe.) The banda also cost $30 total for the three of us. We're going back. We swam, lay on the beach, and hung out at the bar eating chips and drinking (not much) Tusker, an award-winning East African beer with an elephant on the label. (Caitlin wonders why it was award-winning, Eleuthera likes the elephant, and Bree likes tasteless beer.) The whole experience was surprising, because we thought we were going to a public beach and camping out, without a lock on the door or anything. Instead, we wound up in this paradise, thanks to the planning of our hosts, Inno and Musa. We recommend Kipepeo for anyone who is thinking of honeymooning on the cheap, assuming you can get there.

Until we manage to post our own photos, check out the ones at http://www.kipepeovillage.com/gallery.htm. The pictures online are mostly of luxury suites, which were further from the beach than our banda was.

~B,C,&E 

Hamjambo!

Hey everyone! Welcome to our blog from Tanzania. Feel free to give yourself a username and post comments. We thought this would be an easy way to let you all know what's happening in Mikocheni B, Tanzania. If you're wondering about our blog name, "ndizi" means "banana," and it's our favorite word in Swahili. "Hamjambo" is essentially "How are you?" and is a common greeting around here.

There's not much of a post today because we are going to the beach this evening and probably spending the night there. We'll let you know later how it went. Wikendi njema! (We think that means, "Have a nice weekend.")

~Caitlin