By Maytal Agasi
Habari gani ndugu?
Tunajifunza Kiswahili Morogoro.
Tunasema Kiswahili kidogo.
Hali ya hewa ni joto na mvua.
Tunafurahia kunywa chai ya moto.
Tumekula mikate mingi.
Miti na maua ni mizuri.
How are you friend?
We are learning swahili in Morogoro.
We only speak a little Swahili.
The weather is hot and rainy .
We like to drink hot tea at tea time.
We eat a lot of bread.
The trees and flowers are beautiful.
Since our last blog post, a lot has happened. We flew from Kigali in Rwanda to Dar es Salaam by way of Burundi and Kenya. We spent a night in Dar which is one of the largest cities in all of Africa. There is a very large Muslim and Indian presence there which was very different than most of what we are used to. Seeing and experiencing new cultures is one of the most interesting parts of this program. The city was busy and very polluted in comparison to Rwanda. Rwanda is working very hard to preserve its environment and has even banned plastic bags in the entire country! Seeing so much pollution is very hard to see for the many environmentalists within our group. After a night in Dar we were very ready to go to the language school in Morogoro. We split up into three taxis to go to the bus station which was a little scary for the one taxi without an OE. Thankfully all three taxis made it safely to the same place and tears of joy were shed upon our reunion. Then we spent a long five hours in transit watching the scenic views of Tanzania go by. The landscape here is very different from the gorgeous rolling hills of Uganda and Rwanda. Here there are a few tall mountains accompanied by long spans of flat plains. Now we are spending our days in class and our evenings with our homestay families. The language of Swahili is full of many interesting sounds that we are not accustomed to but it makes speaking this new language all the more fun. Since our classes get out at four o’clock we have had lots of free time. We have been filling our time by playing cards and working out. At the very beginning of the trip, some of us decided to do a “mandatory” workout and now that we have increased what we are doing. For the rest of the week, we plan to continue our Swahili studies, hike to a waterfall, and cook a meal for our host families. From here we will travel to the highlands and stay at the Mufindi children’s home.
Badaae, see you later.