I've Got 98 Problems...

And problem number two is Kiswahili.

It's easy enough to learn the basic greetings.

"Hujambo."

"Sijambo."

"Habari gani?"

"Nzuri sana, na wewe?"

"Salama."

Or, informally:

"Mambo!"

"Poa."

After that, it quickly turns into an uphill climb. I had not expected to move to Tanzania before I landed the job at FAME, and I've never studied any Swahili before. When I lived in Chile, it took a while to get up to speed, but I could communicate with anyone who took the time to slow down and work with me. Not so in Tanzania. No English? Back to pointing and grunting. I'm pretty much starting from zero.

I've picked up a new textbook, and I'm studying flashcards for vocabulary, but progress is painfully slow. It feels like I'm right in that liminal zone where I need to be exposed to Kiswahili more, but I still don't have very much to say.

I'm thinking about going to the orphanage down the road to hang out with the kids, since they probably won't mind if I sound like a blithering idiot.

I've also started running with one of the Tanzanian doctors here, Dr. Gabriel, and he's been helping me work on my Swahili then. Dr. Gabriel is still trying to get back up to full speed in the running department, so my side of the bargain is to encourage him to run just a little farther while he drills me on vocabulary.

One of the hazards on our running trails is elephant dung. They come down from the forest at night in search of corn and bananas. We never see them though because they always head back into the hills before dawn. Here's a picture of Dr. Frank trying to keep Molly from rolling in this fresh pile.

My latest scheme for learning Kiswahili was to download Anki, a piece of flashcard software that will let me make audio flashcards. Now I just have to rope a native speaker into helping me with the Swahili side. I'm a little concerned that I'm spending too much time tinkering with study aids as opposed to actually studying. It might be best to simply hire a teacher for regular lessons. That would provide some structure plus a strong commitment for a certain amount of time per week.

 I'm very open to suggestions on good ways to proceed in this language learning venture. If anyone has any good ideas, please let me know.

In other news, the bungalow where I'm living is very nice. I'm going to be sharing it with a Canadian nurse, but she's out of the country, so I have it to myself for the moment. The view from the wraparound porch is quite good at sundown, and it has perfectly spaced pillars for my hammock.
Here are pictures of the porch and the view:

The house also comes with three rather unfriendly cats, who are constantly fighting, hissing and yowling at hours hours of the night.

Here's a picture of one of them trying to look innocent and not fooling anyone.

In defense of the cats, one of them caught a flying bat last night out of midair by performing a five-foot vertical pounce. That may well be the coolest thing I'll ever see.

Speaking of bats, next time, I'll share something you probably never knew about fruit bats.