It doesn't really feel like I'm in Africa yet. We are staying at a hotel with a TV in every room and a swimming pool. We don't go to our homestays until Saturday.
That said, everything is kind of amazing here. We started Swahili today--six hours of only Swahili class. It's fairly easy though, especially having taken other languages so I understand conjugation and such. We've learned so much already, and I'm really enjoying it. (The subject of this entry is today's "phrase of the day": Yes, we can.)
The food at the hotel is good; I'm eating tons of pineapple with every meal. All of the girls are worried about the purported 10-15 pounds we're supposed to gain, so we're trying to be healthy. We might be going to a step aerobics class tomorrow before Swahili--at 7 in the morning or something ridiculous.
The group meshes well; I'm sure we'll encounter our problems, but for the time being we're all so excited to be in Africa that we don't notice anything bad about each other.
We're at the hotel most of the day, so again it doesn't really feel like we're in Africa. But when we venture out it is strange to feel so out of place, skin-color wise. Knowing a little Swahili makes that better, because we're not so much the annoying tourists as we are the students trying to learn the culture.
Classes other than Swahili start tomorrow, and Saturday around midday we get placed with families. We don't know anything about them as of yet, but from what I hear from past trip participants, they will speak English.
Got to run, just thought I'd check in to let you know I made it.
About Me
- MMW
- "The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved. The ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing but burn burn burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars...." - Jack Kerouac, On the Road ____________________________________________________________ "I too, if I may mention myself, have always known that my destiny was, above all, a literary destiny--that bad things and some good things would happen to me, but that, in the long run, all of it would be converted into words." - Jorge Luis Borges, Blindness.
so glad you got to post! don't tell me you're at a holiday inn :) can you teach me cuss words in swahili as soon as possible?
ReplyDeleteThat's my Clare! I want to learn the words for food.
ReplyDeleteThat's so cool! I love learning languages. I hope classes go well for you, and that you like your homestay family. Glad to hear you made it safely!
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