Wednesday, June 22, 2011, Masasi, Tanzania
I am now into my second week with our sisters in Masasi, Tanzania. My work here is going --- some days going well, other days going very slowly. This being my second time in Africa, I'm not surprised. Here the focus is on relationships more than on tasks. For a high-achieving North American who tends to measure progress by work accomplished, this is at times frustrating. However, I am coming to understand the reality of our sisters here --- and learning a lot!
My teaching here is going well ... but slowly. What I am doing here is a new thing, and the Sisters are gradually warming up to my presence and my teaching style. English is used in secondary and post-secondary education and in business --- but otherwise, everyone speaks Swahili. So the Sisters have asked for help in learning conversational English, and in improving their written communication skills. The style here is basically lecture, but I don't believe that one can learn conversational English by lecture only. So there is a kind of clash of teaching-learning expectations. I am working with several of the sisters one-by-one, and helping each one toward her particular expressed goals. One wants help with verb tenses, another with sentence structure in written communications, and so on.
Teaching conversational English one-one-one is its own challenge. At meal times, we try to converse in English, but this can be challenging as everyone else is most comfortable conversing in Swahili.
I'm trying to learn a little Swahili while I am here, which is actually helping me to teach English as I understand where some of the misconceptions that can occur. For example, in Swahili every letter in a word is pronounced, and pronounced the same way every time, similar to languages like Spanish and Portuguese. This is certainly not the case in English. We have all those silent “e”s at the end of words such as cake and like. And consider the pronunciation of “ou” in the words thou, though, and thought. Swahili has no articles (words equivalent to the, an, and a). Also there is just a single word in Swahili for our third-person singular pronouns (he, she, it). I find it helpful to be aware of these things as I am teaching English.
Making an effort to study a little Swahili before coming here is beginning to pay off. When others are talking, I can recognize and understand a few words, occasionally even a full sentence. My reading and listening comprehension is increasing (slowly), and yesterday I even wrote a short paragraph about myself. My speaking is very slow and very weak. When I open my mouth to speak, I can sometimes remember the correct words for an appropriate greeting, and the correct response when someone else greets me. I have “thank you” (asante or asante sana) down pat! I also recognize words for numbers (is anyone who knows me surprised that I recognize numbers?!!).
One very interesting thing is that Swahili-time starts at 6:00 am (daybreak). So 7:00 am is "one" ("saa moja" in Swahili), and 8:00 am is "two" ("saa mbili" in Swahili),... and so on. They use a 12-hour clock, so essentially Swahili time is 6 hours off from English time. Actually, this six-hour difference is rather convenient for making the conversions as you don’t have to add/subtract six hours to convert the times, rather you can read the number across the diameter of the watch. For example, 10:00 in English time is “saa nne” (4 o’clock) in Swahili time; the 10 is opposite the 4 on the diameter of a watch. However, I find that I need to be very careful when I set a time to meet with one of the Sisters, that the time she tells me is the same as the time I assume she means. Sometimes a sister will ask me to meet with her at 3:00 pm, and then say “Let’s meet from 3 to 11.” So I check to make sure whether she means from 3:00 to 5:00 pm or 9:00 to 11:00 am.
Sr. Virginia and I each have a bottle that we refill with drinking water when we are up at the Regional House for lunch or supper. The drinking water tastes vaguely of wood smoke, assuring me that it has been boiled. The smokey taste is not bad, but it is quite noticeable. For me it has become a comforting taste.
Yesterday the electricity went out in the early afternoon, and was out for most of the rest of the day. Among other things, the water pump runs on electricity … a fact that became apparent as I was washing my hands for lunch. I turned on the water to wet my hands and got the soap lathered up, and then the tap went dry. So there I stood with soapy hands until Sister poured water over my hands. One has to keep a sense of humor in these situations!
Let me close here, and leave some stories for another day. You are each in my heart and prayers in a special way.
Peace, S. Barbara Reynolds
