Eyes to See, Ears to Hear

Archive for December, 2007

What is a rat?
For my final Swahili project, I decided to put together a game of Jeopardy. One of the categories in the first round was Msamiati wa Kiingereza. (English Vocabulary) This meant all of their question responses had to include the word in English… not Swahili.
So, this category was chosen and I read this, Kitu cha kompyuta hiki kililigawa jina lake na mnyama mdogo kwa mkia mrefu ambaye kwa kawaida mnawaogopesha sana wanawake:Mouse which translates “This computer part shares its name with a small animal which has a long tail and usually scares women a lot.” One of the other students raised her hand and said, “Panya ni nini?” (What is a mouse or rat? The Swahili word can be translated to either.) Correct response, BUT remember this category is ENGLISH vocabulary meaning you have to say the ENGLISH word. A Tanzanian member of the opposing team pointed that out and raised her hand to answer. I called on her to say it and her response was, “Rat ni nini?” (What is a rat?)

Everybody started laughing so hard and for the rest of the day made jokes about their computers not working because their rat was broken.

Okay, it finally happened to me.

We were walking back to our banda after chai (tea) break today and Dana noticed her shadow. The sun was directly behind us so you couldn’t tell by the shape of the shadow that she’s pregnant. So, she stopped and turned to the side for a few seconds to check out her pregnant profile. Walking in the same direction about 100 feet behind us was a young Tanzania woman whom we’ve noticed to be pretty shy, even when we greet her in Swahili.

So, we began walking again and I turned to the woman and said, “Anapenda kuangalia tembo yako.” Which was what I thought to be in English, “She (Dana) likes to look at her stomach.” But, tembo isn’t stomach. Tembo is elephant and tumbo is stomach! Not too bad. So, I said Dana likes to look at her elephant. No problem… wrong. My Swahili was off more than I realized until a minute or two later. “Wait a second. I said, ‘yako’ (your) and not ‘yake’ (her). So, I just told that woman that you like to look at her elephant. No wonder she looked bewildered.” Dana and I both got a kick out of it.

It really helps to be able to laugh at yourself over here.

One day this past weekend, I heard the village kids playing in the river. There were a bunch of them so I decided to give them some popcorn someone sent to us from the states. (Thanks again, by the way!) So, I walked over to the riverbank and yelled, “Watoto chizi!” (Crazy kids) It took them a little while to figure out where I was standing because of the trees and brush between me and the water. “Mnajua popcorn?” (Do y’all know what popcorn is?) Then, in a syncronized reply, “Ndio!” (Yes) That surprised me actually but Dana reminded me later that we’d seen it for sale in town. “Mnapenda popcorn?” (Do you like popcorn?) “Ndio!” they replied in sync again. “Mnataka popcorn?” (Do you want some popcorn?) “Ndio!” and you know how they said it… about as loud as they could. So, I said, “Sawa, karibu.” (Okay, welcome [to have some].) They started coming down the river like a tidal wave.

After popping it in the microwave, I took it to the gate to give to them. But, the gate was unlocked this time so I was actually able to walk over to them for the first time. As soon as I opened the bag and held it down toward them, all nine hands tried to go into the bag at the same time. “Subiri! Mmoja, mmoja!” (Wait! One at a time.) One of the older kids went first… with a two hand grab… little runt. The others grabbed as much as they could with only five fingers. The last two children were smaller than the rest and they were saying, “Bado.” (Not yet.) Then, I heard a third voice next to them saying the same thing and reaching for the bag in front of them. I glanced up from the bag and the first thing I saw was a shirt pocket full of popcorn on this kid. I continued on up to his face and, you guessed it… ’twas the little runt again. “Enda!” (Go!) I said to him and he took off. “Huna kweli, kwa hiyo si zaidi kwa wewe.” (You don’t have the truth, so no more for you.) I couldn’t think how else to say that I didn’t appreciate his deceitfulness so that’s what came out.

There was enough left to give the last two kids their fair share. I hope they enjoyed it.