Language is Culture...Part III: TICC

If you have read some of my most recent posts, you won’t be surprised to hear that…language is culture. While in the coastal town of Tanga, Tanzania for the past 6-weeks completing an intermediate Swahili course with some teammates, I continued to learn about the new culture surrounding me. Despite some differences - Kenyans seems to first identify themselves more by their tribe, whereas Tanzanias seem to first be…Tanzanias, & a coastal culture is different from an inland culture, especially seen in the different foods they eat (lots of fish, fruit, & coconuts!), different jobs (lots of fishermen),
& a higher prevalence of the Muslim religion - there is definite similarities in Eastern African cultures in the basic ways people live. There was another culture I learned about that I wasn’t expecting…Norwegian. This probably surprises you, too:) Well, the owners of the school are Norwegian. They are involved in many development projects around Tanga, including contracts with a number of Norwegian universities to provide some international community health nursing courses. The Norwegian nursing students & their professors were excited to share their ‘brown cheese’
& homemade bread breakfast, & we were fortunate enough to be a part of their just because traditional Christmas dinner in April:) They were even more excited that we liked it! The Maasai guards at the school added another cultural element…jumping contests & chanting followed by Celine Dion songs on the radio, protecting us from snakes, & learning that they don’t like fish & are scared of crabs…but no fear of lions, mind you:) And then there was the night everything merged together….watching the movie ‘The White Maasai’ in Norwegian with our new friends that translated for us the best they could:)



Speaking of food, I loved the coastal food! When I first arrived, I stayed in a village a 20 minute walk away from school, called Mchukuni,
for 1.5 weeks Every evening, Mama Mwalimu (the lady of the house) cooked the most delicious meals – combinations of rice cooked with coconut milk, ugali (the really dense porridge also popular in Kenya), tomato based stews of vegetables & fresh fish caught by the fishermen in the village, bananas, & fruit to top it all off. All of this was cooked from scratch on a jiko (charcoal cooker) outside, just like in Kenya.
The concrete block house I stayed in was owned by the Mwalimu family, one of the wealthiest families in the village. They had running water & elecriticy (praise the Lord!), but no fans in the bedrooms, which led to some very, very, very hot night topped off with about 100% humidity. I don’t think I’ve ever sweat so much in my life! Some nights, required a quick shower to cool off just to try to get back to sleep. But, this is the life they know & live. Every morning as I ate breakfast (chapatti or a deliciously sweet & dense ‘rice bread’ with ginger chai), I watched women & children come to the house to fetch water…the only tap & clean source of water I knew of in the area. If they couldn’t balance the huge plastic containers full of water on their head, they weren’t as respected by people. Did I mention how impressed I am with African women? Since the Mwalimu’s (Swahili for teacher) house was one of only a few places in town that had electricity, people would bring their cell phones to them to be charged. This is a really popular business in East Africa…probably over most of the developing world. They were also one of the few people that owned a TV, so we had many visitors in the evening when it came time for the English-dubbed Spanish soap operas…that made me feel like I was back in the village in Kenya:) Every evening, Mwalimu (the man of the house) went to the mosque for prayer. Muslim prayer is ‘kusali’ (to pray) in Swahili, whereas Christian prayer is ‘kuomba’ (to ask or beg). Parties were a frequent thing in the village, especially in the evenings when it was slightly cooler.
One wedding lasted from Thursday night until Monday morning at 7am! Some nights, we were taunted by drunken bush babies (a furry creature with a long tail larger than a squirrel) that get into the local brew, & dance around on the roof & crack coconuts:)

Life at TICC was much more Western, but we were surrounded by the Tanzanian staff & our teachers.
Everyday consisted of 2 hours of class (in our outdoor classroom:) ), 1-2 hours of Rosetta Stone, & practical time speaking with the staff. Our main textbook was a book called Simplified Swahili, which was written by an Mzungu (aka Westerner) back in the day, so it matched our Western train of thought & learning styles. I didn’t realize this until the day our teacher taught from a different book written by a Tanzanian….I felt like he was jumping around all over the place & teaching small parts of many different topics that didn’t fit together. Language is culture.
There were 1st to 4th grade reading books available for us to learn from, also. I saw a sad theme in too many of the stories that were similar to something I wrote about in a previous blog….death, sickness, brokenness, destruction. One of the stories depicted a herd of cows getting killed by a train, another, a mother so sick & vomiting that she was hospitalized, & another was titled ‘Father, don’t kill me’! Not all of the stories were like this, but it was enough to get a glimpse into the different culture, the different practical things children have to be taught, the different life here.

A couple of hours each day was spent speaking Swahili with the staff. We learned Swahili words about the kitchen, housekeeping, fishing, maintenance, etc. I even got to try out kufyeka (slashing grass) with a panga (machete)!
As we got to know these people, they became our friends. Those that were Christians invited us to their churches on Sundays…another good practical Swahili experience. A teammate of mine began reading the Bible with a Muslim friend, nicknamed Simba (‘lion’):)…it was mutually beneficial Swahili & English practice, & well, you know, the Word. If you’ve ever read from the King James Version of the Bible, you know it doesn’t use every day English. Well, it’s kind of the same with the Bible in Swahili….it’s grammar is very advanced & the words used aren’t every day words.
Please pray for Simba as he is hungry to continue learning more. One day a group of us rode bikes to the nearby village of Mwahako to check on some TICC sponsor kids, and play soccer & sing with them. We had renditions of ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees, & Toes’ going on in English, Swahili, & Norwegian:) Towards the end of the course, Mama Ruth (the makubwa…aka boss of TICC) had Elizabeth (a teammate & fellow nurse) & I go with some of the Norwegian nursing students to the local clinics & hospital to help translate for interviews in the delivery wards.
It was like a breath of fresh air to be in a medical setting again, especially when I got a glimpse of their Low-Birth-Weight Unit…my NICU:) One of our final assignments was to do an 5-10 minute oral presentation about our experience in Swahili. Be looking for that as my next blog…

I’m now back in Narok, trying to get settled-in to life in Kenya, & use the Swahili I’ve learned. There’s always more language & culture to learn…so, here it goes!

**If you'd like to see pictures from my experience, click here**

Language is Culture...Part II: Homestays

I recently completed 1.5 months of homestays with Kenyan families to help with enculturating & language learning. The father of both families are co-workers of mine at AfricaHope...one family lives in Narok (the same town I live in) & the other lives in a more rural town out in the 'bush' a 1.5-2 hour drive south of Narok. Both of these experiences gave me a glimpse into the lives of Kenyans here, at least for families that are on the more 'well-off' side. I spent quite a bit of time during both homestays studying Swahili, too, with their daughters that were home from school. We used a lot of the techniques that I learned about in my training in Colorado last summer...I had fun & I hope they did, too:) The same rang true with language leraning with a language helper & homestays as with language school....Language is Culture! Here's some of the things I remembered to write down:

- My name has changed: it's really difficult for Kenyans to pronounce my name...it always comes out as "Kate"...plus, "Katie" to them sounds too much like kati (Swahili for 'time') & kiti (Swahili for chair/couch), so they get pretty confused sometimes when I'm introduced

- Toilet talk: all cultures are different as far as what is appropriate to say. Here, you do not say, "I'm going to the choo" (choo = toilet), you say, "I'm going to help myself". I had one Kenyan friend tell me I was going to the 'relief office' :)

- Reality: I asked the girls to help me write sentences using words of objects that I'm trying to learn...a common theme I saw was about things being 'broken', 'stolen', 'dirty', or 'clean'...frequnt realities of life here & what so many women's lives revolve around. I wanted to find the word for ceiling , but when they wrote a sentence for me it translated, "They hid money in the roof."...I was confused. The girls said, "Aren't roof & celing the same thing? Most people don't have a ceiling. And they do hide their money in the grass roofs." The Swahili words for bake & steam were also unknown to them...they don't cook those ways...they don't have an oven. Another sentence did bring some humor...I had found the phrase for 'kitchen sink' (beseni la kuoshea vyomba vya bafu...a fete considering most families in rural areas don't have running water & therefore use basins instead), but my friend wasn't familiar with this combination of words & only registered 'basin' --> "I lost the kitchen sink" :)

- Different meanings: the same word means different things not only across languages, but also accross locations & cultures. I was talking about my bibi one day...grandmother in Tanzanian Swahili, but wife in Kenyan Swahili...opps! So, now if I go back to Tanzania & talk about my nyanya (grandmother in Kenya), they're going to think I'm talking about my tomato :) Uwanja wa ndege ('field of airplanes') = airport (which, when taken apart, seems to be a 'port for the air') Dawa la meno ('teeth medicine') = toothpaste ('paste for teeth') P.S. 'Narok' (the town I live in) apparently means 'hell' in Thai!!! Hell's Gate National Park is nearby :)

- Word construction: as I learn the literal means of words or phrases, it's easy to see that language develops as the culture develops, & words are created in the context of what is already known. For example, in Swahili, disappointed = kosa tumaini (literally 'to lack hope'). You can see this in English, too....breakfast = 'to break the fast'. It's kind of beautiful to see a language in this way...

- The English bubble: things don't always (actually, usually don't) translate literally into English...each language is it's own, why would it fit into the English bubble?...but that can be hard to remember & thus causes frustration sometimes. The frustration can go both ways, though...how would one go about describing why we call 'tank tops' tank tops????

- Culinary limits: different peoples stomachs tolerate different things, let alone different cultures with the foods we're used to! Milk (maziwa), for example, in the Maasai culture is a staple of their diet. You can find maziwa lala ('sleeping milk') in the supermarkets, aka "yogurt" as described to me. I've also heard of the famous Maasai 'sour milk', with the steps of kuharibkia ('to spoil'...no particles yet, but it smells) to kuganda ('to freeze'...soured with particles to which lots of sugar is added). I don't know if my stomach would 'sleep' through the night with that...


Some challenges:
- Have I turned into an 'interrupter'??? How do you know when it's approritate to say something when you don't understand what they're talking about? And by the time you do translate in your head enough to know what they were talking about, are you now saying a totally random thing off topic?! :)

- The 'right way' vs the 'ministry way'...this is a big challenge for me because I like to do things the 'right way'. I began my Swahili study in Tanzania where Swahili is 'purer' (Swahili was born in Zanzibar, grew-up in Tanzania, & died in Kenya), but then did homestays in rural Kenyan where proper Swahili is taught in school, but is definitely not spoken the same way ("Why would anyone choose to speak less 'intelligently' than they're taught?! Oh, yeah...we do this in the States all the time!"). Where do I put my efforts...learning Swahili by the books or by learning how the people I'll be working with speak it (even when I know it's 'wrong' & goes against my perfectionist grain)??? Do I want to 'fit in' or be the equivalent of a British person speaking in the South in the States???

- "If I don't know how to say it in Swahili, I just shouldn't say anything"...right? Probably wrong. Warning: This leads to a decrease in interactions with the people around you, & therefore decreased relationships. That can get pretty lonely...

- Dictionary vs person...who to trust? Well, it turns out both are 'right' at different times depending on how the language is used in the area you're in. This definitely led to some frustrations when I thought I'd learned a word I looked up only to find out that's not how it's used here...kusali means 'to pray' in Swahili, but not in Narok it's how Muslims pray! Note to self: say omba when I want to pray:) But, the dictionary is still my friend...my language helpers & I reference it all the time!

- 'Good' days & 'bad' days...when I seemed to be having a 'good' day with language, I would have a 'bad' day with culture shock. When I'd have a 'good' day with culture, I'd have a 'bad' day with language. The days that both aspects were 'good' seemed rare, but....really good :)


Some new experiences during my homestay time:

- listening to the radio while hanging out & relaxing in the afternoons...I've gotten used to only listening to the radio in the car on occassion

- watching a chicken be slaughtered, cooked, & then placed onto my plate for dinner...surprisingly I had no aversion to eating the tastey dinner

- diarrhea on an outdoor squaty-potty outhouse...perhaps too much information for some people, but hey, it's inevitable when living overseas :)

- reading by flashlight at night after the solar power ran out...this usually lead to an earlier bed time than I'm used to

- brushing my teeth outside underneath the breathtaking stars at night

- old time country & gospel music are still alive & well in Kenya :)

- watching a friend eat dirt that she picked up while walking by the shamba (farm), which she said is a really common snack for women...it's even available for sale in the supermarket! She was recently pregnant, probably had malaria at some point, & now is anemic (odd cravings that come along with anemia like this is called pica in the States, for which people take iron tablets for months, but it's not readily availbe here, & if they do take it & don't see quick results after a week they stop)

- I went to visit a friend & was served: chai x2 (of course!), hard boiled eggs, gum, & 'medicinal' tea :)

- meeting iliterate adults & children that have never been to school nor never will...I didn't realize how prevelent this still is here, despite there being laws about kids going to school (there's just not the personnel out in rural areas to enforce this, & some families still don't see the need for an education)

- an 8 hour church service, part of which was a celebration of a CD the choir had recorded & is now selling...it was long, but also filled with beautiful dancing & praising God

- I felt like I was on the way to becoming part of the family, not just a guest, when the mother of the family told me "Karibu dada" (welcome sister) & held my hand as we walked through the market (a common things for friends to do in this culture...for men & women)


**If you'd like to see more pictures from my homestay experiences, click here**

Twenty-ten...

My year in pictures...some of my favorite moments:

January - Haiti Benefit concert with Kim...good times:)

February - Nashville good-bye's & move:(

March - Greece!!!
April - Medical missions training in North Carolina...

May - Kiawah...ahhhh:)

June - Colorado...MTI...family time with the Baran's



July - Family Reunion...

August - City Museum & Vermont...


September - Feeling loved amidst good-byes & Welcome to Kenya!

October - 6 weeks in Ethiopia...
November - Tanzanian Swahili course & Mt. Kilimanjaro!

December - My 1st Christmas in Kenya...

Any now...on to 2011!!!!

Language is Culture...

I learned that ‘language is culture’ this summer while in PILAT at MTI in Colorado. It made sense to me, but I didn’t really understand until I was sitting at MS-TCDC in Tanzania in a Beginner’s Swahili course a couple of weeks ago. Certain words exist in languages because of the culture, and other words don’t exist because of the culture. For example, in Tanzanian Swahili (apparently the ‘purest’ Swahili), there isn’t a word for ‘lay down’ because it would be difficult to lay down on your bed that’s in the living room & that you’re sharing with others, so…you only sleep on a bed. Or how about this one….’oa’ (to marry) is only for men…women ‘olewa’ (get married). I think that eludes to arranged marriages, as well as the different rights of men & women. The words I learned also explain culture. Some of the first words I learned were ‘shamba’ (farm), ‘bustani’ (garden), & ‘mbolea’ (fertilizer)…not the words I would have expected. But, when you realize that the majority of people here farm at least one crop, they’re important to know. As is how ‘time’ works around here. The day starts when the sun comes up, not around say 6am. So….when people started using clocks, they said the numbers a bit differently…subtracting 6 hours from the time shown on the clock. For example, if the clock shows 10am it is read ‘saa nne asubushi’ (4 in the morning), not ‘kumi’ (10)! In class, the teacher also went on to explain that some people in really rural villages still don’t use clocks, so that’s an even bigger challenge when trying to get people to be ‘on time’. Time telling by the sun sounds pretty cool, though:) Learning the explanation of the meanings of some words & how others were formed was really interesting. For example, ‘mwana’ (child) + ‘mke’ (wife) = ‘mwanamke’ (woman, aka ‘child born to be a wife’). The same was for ‘mwanamume’ = man, aka ‘child born to be a husband’ (‘mume’). Or one of my favorites….’barua’ (letter) + pepe (husks….like corn husks) = email….because it’s like a letter that flies away just like the light-weight husks of corn do:) Some Swahili words have just been adopted from English, hence the lovely term ‘Kiswaengligh’. I like those words:)

Another language is culture thing….greetings. Greetings are super important in this culture. To give you a sense of how important…one of my Swahili teachers was acting out a phone call in which he was going to tell someone he was in danger (I can’t remember how this came up, but it’s always something good to know!), & it went something like this (in a whisper):

#1 “Habari za leo?” Hi. How’s your day?
#2 “Nzuri sana. Na wewe je?” Very good. And yours?
#1 “Nzuri sana. Hujambo?” Very good. How are you?
#2 “Sijambo. Mzima?” I’m good. Are you complete?
#1 “Mzima. Nipo hatarini!” I’m complete. I’m in danger….right this moment!
#2 “Nitapiga polici.” I’ll call the police.
#1 “Asante sana.” Thank you very much.

Can you imagine?! Language is culture….greetings before danger:) Oh yeah….also, you’re always doing ‘good’…no matter what:) Each day at language school, we had 5.5 hours of class time, complete with regular meal & chai/coffee/hot chocolate breaks. We took notes, we had homework, we played games, we sang songs…we learned Swahili:) My brain was definitely tired & full by the end of the day! There were a number of times in class that I was frustrated with Swahili….”Why don’t they just say ___, like in English…it’s so much easier!” And then I remembered the story of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11). Mankind started out with one language, but then we started trying to achieve Heaven & fame. So, God fixed that. He had a reason for scattering us all over the Earth speaking different languages. “Ok…I’ll learn it the Swahili way…” :) Twice we had the opportunity to talk with a native Swahili speaker for an hour….the first time I walked away with a headache The second time was better, though:) We also had a ‘field trip’ to the market…most of the vendors enjoyed us trying our Swahili out & appreciated our efforts.

My classmates at TCDC consisted of other Americans, Germans, Swede’s, British, & Dutch. We got to rest our brains some on the weekends, & explored the area a bit. My personal favorite was Mt. Kilimanjaro:)


Now that I’ve returned to Kenya…I’m trying to practice using all the things I learned in Tanzania. I’m also using tools that I learned about at my PILAT training at MTI in Colorado this past summer. Here’s a taste of some of the things I learned & did in PILAT... Let me just say…thank you God for not making Swahili a tonal language & for it using the Roman alphabet!!! :)



Language learning really is exhausting…my brain is thinking & functioning in ways that are new or haven’t been used in a very long time! I’ll be getting a language helper after the new year when everyone returns back to work from Christmas break, but until then I’m just going to town everyday & practicing with who ever will be patient, listen, & talk to me:) I’m also living with a Kenyan family, so I can live the culture & the language. After all….language is culture!

If you’d like to see more of my pictures from Tanzania, click here.