My class is going well, yesterday I went over to "the" Germans house (refer to an early blog post to who the German is) along with my teacher and the other student in the class, he lives with his wife in a place called sinza a suburb of Dar es salaam. It was quite a nice house, we were also treated to quite a feast that I havnt had for a while. His wife works for a German development agency where she consults with a local NGO that focuses on civics in schools. She was complaining about the bureaucracy she has to go through and basically saying how the agency has a certain way of doing things and they want her to implement these ways in Africa in which she says is impossible, we then got onto the topic of AID which very much interested me.
The lattitude volunteers left yesterday to go all over Tanzania, most of them were quite happy as they didnt really like Dar its very dirty and can be quite busy. On Thursday I met them again in the city and we went to a few craft shops where they could buy some curios. Most of them tried eating ugali which is the local stable here in Africa made from maize meal, some of them thought it was ok, but they didnt really like it, they all knew though that they would most likely be eating it at least once a day.
Today I'm holding my own classes again 3 people will be coming for English classes and I have just spent a bit of time finding worksheets for them to do, everyday I'm now getting at least 3 people wanting to attend my classes but most I have to say no to as I just dont have any time.
Ohh and tomorrow is the cricket match which is quite exciting.
So in general nothing that exciting has been happening here, just the usual stuff, better go off now and catch up on my missed Swahili.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Ninajifunza
Since my last update a few things have happened.
On Tuesday the new lattitude volunteers arrived, the first group were 9 British volunteers arriving at 8am I wasnt able to meet them at the airport as I had class so Judy the local rep for lattitude went and picked them up. I managed to get to their hostel the YWCA at 12 soon after Judy left to pick 2 Australians up who had taken Qatar air. The Uk volunteers were left with me, which was quite interesting as I didnt really no Dar es salaam well as I had only been to the city a few times, but they all wanted to go to the market after we had gotten some food (we got Steers a South African company). Catching the Dalala in the city is a struggle as not many people can speak english and the volunteers didnt no a word, my swahili managed to hold up quite well and they all seemed quite impressed.
Although their was a small problem, one of the girls got her camera stolen while we were crossing the road to catch the bus, now the guy who robbed her was quite skilled, she had her camera in a bum bag just below her stomach and the guy had walked across her and in one motion unzipped her pouch and took the camera, she didnt realise it was gone until she had gotten on the bus.
I felt quite bad as she had been in the country not longer then a few hours and she had already been robbed, we were very easy targets I guess. Im quite surprised I havnt been robbed yet, at the time she had been robbed I had a MP3 player, camera, phone, money and a credit card in my pocket haha.
Being in such a big group of westerners we attracted quite a large amount of attention, and not many of the people talking to us could speak swahili so I got to practice quite a bit.
Tomorrow Ill be seeing the volunteers again to go shopping and do other various things. At the moment I need to catch up on quite a bit of Swahili I have missed.
Joe
On Tuesday the new lattitude volunteers arrived, the first group were 9 British volunteers arriving at 8am I wasnt able to meet them at the airport as I had class so Judy the local rep for lattitude went and picked them up. I managed to get to their hostel the YWCA at 12 soon after Judy left to pick 2 Australians up who had taken Qatar air. The Uk volunteers were left with me, which was quite interesting as I didnt really no Dar es salaam well as I had only been to the city a few times, but they all wanted to go to the market after we had gotten some food (we got Steers a South African company). Catching the Dalala in the city is a struggle as not many people can speak english and the volunteers didnt no a word, my swahili managed to hold up quite well and they all seemed quite impressed.
Although their was a small problem, one of the girls got her camera stolen while we were crossing the road to catch the bus, now the guy who robbed her was quite skilled, she had her camera in a bum bag just below her stomach and the guy had walked across her and in one motion unzipped her pouch and took the camera, she didnt realise it was gone until she had gotten on the bus.
I felt quite bad as she had been in the country not longer then a few hours and she had already been robbed, we were very easy targets I guess. Im quite surprised I havnt been robbed yet, at the time she had been robbed I had a MP3 player, camera, phone, money and a credit card in my pocket haha.
Being in such a big group of westerners we attracted quite a large amount of attention, and not many of the people talking to us could speak swahili so I got to practice quite a bit.
Tomorrow Ill be seeing the volunteers again to go shopping and do other various things. At the moment I need to catch up on quite a bit of Swahili I have missed.
Joe
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Amelewa
I thought I would give you a brief update about how my classes went.
On Saturday I had three people come and see me after they responded to my ad, the first guy was in his mid 30's doing a masters in business and he had taken an economics subject that he was struggling with, hence I spent about an hour with him going over some basic economic theory as well as some basic financial maths.
The next guy also needed help in economics but with this guy, I went through some relevant economics (which at times is hard to find) the guy had gotten a loan not of a huge amount and he wanted to know about interest rates and inflation, and how that affects his loan, needless to say it was quite interesting and I think he actually learnt quite a bit of practical stuff.
The last person was a women who was studying journalism and she needed help with english, so for the class we just spent the time talking as I wanted to see how her english held up.
I have two more classes on Wednesday.
There have also been quite a few other people respond to my ad who just wanted to be friends, ahh Africa.
In other more interesting news my beginners class finished on Friday, so in celebration we went to the city to have a look at the local markets, the market stall were mainly taken by fresh food and vegies as well as fish, generally I hate fish markets but this fish market was much worse then anything I had smelt before, mainly due to it being underground and hence air ventilation was non it was quite a challenge to stay down there for more then a few seconds but hey I learnt a few new words like "what smells, this place smells"
My intermediate Swahili course starts on Monday, I wont be coming to the first day though as I have to go to a meeting with the head of lattitude in Tanzania (Lattitude being the volunteer organisation I help out with in Melbourne) the volunteers to Tanzania from AUS and the UK will be arriving on Tuesday so we have to organise an orientation with them. Im sure most when they get off the plane they will be in awe.
Here in Tanzania their is quite a large number of "white people" who mainly work here with NGO's I have spoken to quite a few of them, they all seem really nice, but hardly any of them no the language and they admit its a huge problem, which really just reinforces my decision to learn Swahili.
Yesterday I also met this Tanzanian man who runs a local cricket club for the kids they are called the Dar raptors and he wanted me to come down to their next game on Sunday to help out, which I am quite excited about.
Joe
On Saturday I had three people come and see me after they responded to my ad, the first guy was in his mid 30's doing a masters in business and he had taken an economics subject that he was struggling with, hence I spent about an hour with him going over some basic economic theory as well as some basic financial maths.
The next guy also needed help in economics but with this guy, I went through some relevant economics (which at times is hard to find) the guy had gotten a loan not of a huge amount and he wanted to know about interest rates and inflation, and how that affects his loan, needless to say it was quite interesting and I think he actually learnt quite a bit of practical stuff.
The last person was a women who was studying journalism and she needed help with english, so for the class we just spent the time talking as I wanted to see how her english held up.
I have two more classes on Wednesday.
There have also been quite a few other people respond to my ad who just wanted to be friends, ahh Africa.
In other more interesting news my beginners class finished on Friday, so in celebration we went to the city to have a look at the local markets, the market stall were mainly taken by fresh food and vegies as well as fish, generally I hate fish markets but this fish market was much worse then anything I had smelt before, mainly due to it being underground and hence air ventilation was non it was quite a challenge to stay down there for more then a few seconds but hey I learnt a few new words like "what smells, this place smells"
My intermediate Swahili course starts on Monday, I wont be coming to the first day though as I have to go to a meeting with the head of lattitude in Tanzania (Lattitude being the volunteer organisation I help out with in Melbourne) the volunteers to Tanzania from AUS and the UK will be arriving on Tuesday so we have to organise an orientation with them. Im sure most when they get off the plane they will be in awe.
Here in Tanzania their is quite a large number of "white people" who mainly work here with NGO's I have spoken to quite a few of them, they all seem really nice, but hardly any of them no the language and they admit its a huge problem, which really just reinforces my decision to learn Swahili.
Yesterday I also met this Tanzanian man who runs a local cricket club for the kids they are called the Dar raptors and he wanted me to come down to their next game on Sunday to help out, which I am quite excited about.
Joe
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Chezie
Well I have only two days of my beginners course left, I then start my intermediate course on Monday, so I really don't have any rest.
On Friday we will be going on an excursion to the market for class, I don't no if my Swahili will be able to hold up.
Class is becoming quite hard, for the past few days we have been learning different noun classes for example the M/Wa class is for living things ie people (with a few exceptions), there is about 5 different noun classes. What this means if that for every noun classes there is an different construction for example in the M/Wa class of nouns the word for "This" is Huyu or the possesive prefix to say "that is mine" is wangu. This might not seem too hard but in the N/N class nouns "This" is "Hii" which means "These" in the M/WI class of nouns.
In other words when someone speaks you need to no what class noun they are talking about so that you then no who and what they are talking about. This is quite easy compared to adjectives prefixes for the different noun class's which also change and in some cases depend on the what the starting letter of the noun is which will tell you what the correct prefix is.
Haha it requires alot of practice to get used to, at the moment I'm just guessing what they are talking about.
Well in other news I went to a school on Tuesday to speak to the principal to see if they needed any help and if he knew anyone who needed extra tutoring. The school was not the worst in the area but it was still very run down, the class rooms were packed but there was still a huge amount of kids still outside, the reason being they couldnt pay apparently it cost around 400,000 shillings a year for high school students, which in comparsion to the average yearly wage of 1.6 million shillings ( adjusted for PPP, my previous figures were understated) is often not a option for many familes.
So far my tutoring has had quite a large number of people interested, my first class will be this Saturday and I will go from there, I have about five people for Saturday and I am going to see how it works before I try to help and more people.
Joe
On Friday we will be going on an excursion to the market for class, I don't no if my Swahili will be able to hold up.
Class is becoming quite hard, for the past few days we have been learning different noun classes for example the M/Wa class is for living things ie people (with a few exceptions), there is about 5 different noun classes. What this means if that for every noun classes there is an different construction for example in the M/Wa class of nouns the word for "This" is Huyu or the possesive prefix to say "that is mine" is wangu. This might not seem too hard but in the N/N class nouns "This" is "Hii" which means "These" in the M/WI class of nouns.
In other words when someone speaks you need to no what class noun they are talking about so that you then no who and what they are talking about. This is quite easy compared to adjectives prefixes for the different noun class's which also change and in some cases depend on the what the starting letter of the noun is which will tell you what the correct prefix is.
Haha it requires alot of practice to get used to, at the moment I'm just guessing what they are talking about.
Well in other news I went to a school on Tuesday to speak to the principal to see if they needed any help and if he knew anyone who needed extra tutoring. The school was not the worst in the area but it was still very run down, the class rooms were packed but there was still a huge amount of kids still outside, the reason being they couldnt pay apparently it cost around 400,000 shillings a year for high school students, which in comparsion to the average yearly wage of 1.6 million shillings ( adjusted for PPP, my previous figures were understated) is often not a option for many familes.
So far my tutoring has had quite a large number of people interested, my first class will be this Saturday and I will go from there, I have about five people for Saturday and I am going to see how it works before I try to help and more people.
Joe
Monday, January 18, 2010
Hodi Hodi
Now yesterday was an interesting day!
I had a day off yesterday and on Saturday I had decided to make a poster advertising free tutoring for students in English, maths and economics in exchange for helping me with Swahili. Anyway so I made this poster on Sunday at the local internet cafe, and on the way back to my hostel and old women and her son came up to me wanting money for the kid for school clothes, at this point I was quite skeptical as you often in Africa get people seeing a white person and assuming money so they make up a sob story to con money from said person (thus a begging culture is created).
A story when I was in South Africa comes to mind where a kid wanted some money for bread, thus I went and got him bread but didn't give him the money and he threw the bread at me. Anyway to continue the story, I spoke to this women for quite a while in my broken Swahili and I ended up giving her about 10,000 shillings (7USD) that she said she needed for the school uniform, and I told her if she wanted me to buy books as well she had to come back and meet me and show me the new uniform in about 2 hours.
A story when I was in South Africa comes to mind where a kid wanted some money for bread, thus I went and got him bread but didn't give him the money and he threw the bread at me. Anyway to continue the story, I spoke to this women for quite a while in my broken Swahili and I ended up giving her about 10,000 shillings (7USD) that she said she needed for the school uniform, and I told her if she wanted me to buy books as well she had to come back and meet me and show me the new uniform in about 2 hours.
I was 99% sure she wouldn't come back so I went off to post my advertisements for free tutoring around the place, I had decided to go to one of the big shopping centers and post it on the advertising board, except when I got there the shopping center management wanted 10,000 shillings to put the poster up for one week, that I could not afford and subsequently I decided to post it illegally elsewhere. I was about half way across the shopping center when I was stopped by the shopping center management who told me some random heard about my poster and they had donated 10,000 shillings to me as they thought it was a good cause. This I was quite impressed about as most Tanzanias wouldn't get paid more then 15,000 a week.
In a good mood I took a taxi back home and to my utter surprise the mother was waiting for me, with the new uniform she had bought for her son, she even had change. Now this felt like a miracle and I was quite amazed that these things had happened out of the kindness of the human spirit. I then went to the shops with the kid so he could pick out a bag and books. Tanzania had taken me by surprise twice that day. The kid was quite happy and he said he would come and visit.
I had school again today and posted a few more advertisements up there has been quite a few people interested ill keep you informed.
I had school again today and posted a few more advertisements up there has been quite a few people interested ill keep you informed.
All in all it was quite a interesting day.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Amekunywa Pombe kidogo
Im half way through my beginners class and only have six more lessons left. Its growing in difficulty everyday with new rules and many new words. We learn about 30 new words a day which I have to try and memorize. I have become quite good at reading Swahili but listening is still the most challenging I might be able to pick up 1 word out of every 5 and then I have to analyze to see which tense ect they are using so as you can guess it takes me a long time to reply and by that time they have probably already said something else.
Swahili in my opinion is quite illogical for instance a day starts at 6:am when the sun rises. This means for example on you clock it could be 8am but if someone ask's you the time you would say 2am in other words anytime you want to tell the time you have to minus 6 hours from your clock unless you have a Swahili clock with the 6 at the top.
Also in Swahili the week starts on a Saturday which is obviously very illogical for me.
On Thursday I saw a movie at the local cinema her in Dar es Salaam, apparently they only have 2 cinemas in the country, the one I went to was at this small shopping center. They even had Shoprite there, which when I went into reminded me very much of South Africa.
The last few days after class I have been going to this local NGO to help them with their computers. They are having problems with excel, printing and things like that, its quite an interesting organization, they provide radios (which run on solar energy) to disadvantaged areas so the kids are able to listen to stations that provide education.
In other news the African cup of nations is being played at the moment so thats basically all everyone is talking about, yesterday we went to a local pub to watch Ivory Coast play Ghana, it was quite an experience.
Im off,
Swahili in my opinion is quite illogical for instance a day starts at 6:am when the sun rises. This means for example on you clock it could be 8am but if someone ask's you the time you would say 2am in other words anytime you want to tell the time you have to minus 6 hours from your clock unless you have a Swahili clock with the 6 at the top.
Also in Swahili the week starts on a Saturday which is obviously very illogical for me.
On Thursday I saw a movie at the local cinema her in Dar es Salaam, apparently they only have 2 cinemas in the country, the one I went to was at this small shopping center. They even had Shoprite there, which when I went into reminded me very much of South Africa.
The last few days after class I have been going to this local NGO to help them with their computers. They are having problems with excel, printing and things like that, its quite an interesting organization, they provide radios (which run on solar energy) to disadvantaged areas so the kids are able to listen to stations that provide education.
In other news the African cup of nations is being played at the moment so thats basically all everyone is talking about, yesterday we went to a local pub to watch Ivory Coast play Ghana, it was quite an experience.
Im off,
Monday, January 11, 2010
Rafiki
I leave Zanzibar in a few hours, its been great. We got ripped of getting here. On Friday when we got to the port (we being myself and this Norwegian girl who is learning swahili with me) a group of guys came up to us offering to help, they tried to take us to one of their friends but we refused and went to one of the ticket booths, these two men were standing outside and I mentioned that I wanted to catch the 11:30 ferry, they said that it was full and that there was a ferry which was faster which left in 20 mins, at first I refused as they were offering it at hugely inflated the price, but they kept on pushing us saying if we don't catch this one we will have to wait for 5 hours. They eventually put the price down , we paid in shillings which was more complicated as we had to convert everything to the AUD. (I was quite worried about the ticket as a friend of mine had been there and bought a fake ticket which he couldnt refund). When we got down to the dock, there was this large catamaran boat which I was quite relieved about but as soon as we showed out ticket they took us to this small speed boat from asking other people it seemed we paid 20US to much. It was quite a scary ride but water was only coming in from the side not the bottom hahha.
The thing about Zanzibar at the moment is obviously the problem with electricity I found out that the government had not been repairing the line from the mainland of Tanzania to Zanzibar but instead had been using it on building houses for their wives, consequently the line has broken down leaving 1 million people who live on the island in the dark (intended) only a few shops and hotels have generators which run for only a few hours a day. Tourist number are down and many shops have had to close, the local people are suffering greatly especially at night, they have no place to put their food as most can not afford a generator.Street lights are few so its not safe walking around at night.
Most of my time here has been practicing Swahili, my favorite Swahili words that I use regularly are, I like that, how much does it cost? and that way to much.Its been quite fun to talk to the shop keeps in swahili and they are all very impressed with the amount of things I can say. The problem is when I say a few words in Swahili like, how's work today? they think I'm fluent in Swahili, so they start speeding along speaking Swahili to me which 90% I have no idea what they are saying usually I just reply with yes which does not always work and they just start laughing at me.
On Saturday night we had quite an adventure the Norwegian girl thought she had malaria, so we had to take a taxi at 2am to this private hospital. When we got to the hospital the doctor simply took her blood pressure, and since she was taking malaria tablets he believed she couldn't get malaria and that it must be a virus. I then mentioned that shouldn't he be checking her temperature, his reply was ohh yeah. We left the hospital quite dissatisfied. On the way home we were speaking to one of the locals, who told us about the local doctor who lived in the local community. We thought it was a good idea and that it couldn't hurt to get a second opinion. The doctor was actually quite good, he took a blood test and urine test, he seemed to know alot more then the doctor at the private hospital and he was much cheaper. Luckily she didn't have malaria, well yet anyway. All in all Zanzibar has been quite an experience and has helped my confidence in Swahili quite alot.
Well im off to catch my ferry
Joe
Friday, January 8, 2010
Habari za safari?
Our teacher today told us a funny story:
For this story you need to no one thing: In swahili the word fua means take off your clothes and the work vua means wash clothes.
One of the teachers other students wanted his clothes washed by the maid so he went to the maid to ask her. He asked her "fua the maid in astonishment said "no I do not do that" and the guy replied with "you have to thats your job" and subsequently offered her money saying that he would even pay her, long story short he apparently got arrested. Ha
This Tuesday is the Zanizibar revolution holiday so we get Tuesday off, we also decided to take Monday off so we can have a long weekend. I have decided to travel to Zanzibar on Saturday coming back on Tuesday.Zanizbar hasnt had power for over month and they wont be getting any till March, which is quite abnormal even for Africa, imagine if they didnt have power in Australia for that long. Although most of the hotels have generators many had to close down, so it's going to be a ghost town.
My lessons are getting better, the teacher makes it quite interesting and we play lots of games ie flash card games. The hardest part is listening to other people speak Swahili and then translating that to English. I'm comfortable now to ask questions and greet people on the street . I went to the grocery store yesterday for bananas and had to order in Swahili unfortunately I gave him the wrong number and I couldnt understand what he said so I got double the amount of them.
Im off
Joe
For this story you need to no one thing: In swahili the word fua means take off your clothes and the work vua means wash clothes.
One of the teachers other students wanted his clothes washed by the maid so he went to the maid to ask her. He asked her "fua the maid in astonishment said "no I do not do that" and the guy replied with "you have to thats your job" and subsequently offered her money saying that he would even pay her, long story short he apparently got arrested. Ha
This Tuesday is the Zanizibar revolution holiday so we get Tuesday off, we also decided to take Monday off so we can have a long weekend. I have decided to travel to Zanzibar on Saturday coming back on Tuesday.Zanizbar hasnt had power for over month and they wont be getting any till March, which is quite abnormal even for Africa, imagine if they didnt have power in Australia for that long. Although most of the hotels have generators many had to close down, so it's going to be a ghost town.
My lessons are getting better, the teacher makes it quite interesting and we play lots of games ie flash card games. The hardest part is listening to other people speak Swahili and then translating that to English. I'm comfortable now to ask questions and greet people on the street . I went to the grocery store yesterday for bananas and had to order in Swahili unfortunately I gave him the wrong number and I couldnt understand what he said so I got double the amount of them.
Im off
Joe
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Kiswahili
This post will be short
Swahili is quite a hard language, for me anyway. The other people in my course already no at least 4 languages, so its kinda embarrassing.
The arrangement is quite different to english, I also have to re learn all the verbs and nouns as well as tenses. Its hard work.
Last week in Tanzania someone poisoned some stock of ugali which is the same name as pap in south africa and lots of people died, so no one wants to eat ugali at the moment.
I have asked around for volunteer work and lot of people need help, they have huge shortages of teachers much worse then in South Africa.
Im about 30 mins out from the center of the city and even where I am the roads are non existent, so its often easier for me to walk everywhere.
I better be off
This post went off in small tangents that were quite useless but hey!
Joe
Swahili is quite a hard language, for me anyway. The other people in my course already no at least 4 languages, so its kinda embarrassing.
The arrangement is quite different to english, I also have to re learn all the verbs and nouns as well as tenses. Its hard work.
Last week in Tanzania someone poisoned some stock of ugali which is the same name as pap in south africa and lots of people died, so no one wants to eat ugali at the moment.
I have asked around for volunteer work and lot of people need help, they have huge shortages of teachers much worse then in South Africa.
Im about 30 mins out from the center of the city and even where I am the roads are non existent, so its often easier for me to walk everywhere.
I better be off
This post went off in small tangents that were quite useless but hey!
Joe
Monday, January 4, 2010
After a long plane flight....
The place I'm staying in during my stay here is called Q bar, which is basically a large open bar as the name suggests and has about 4 stories of rooms above the bar. I am staying in the backpackers room features include a sometimes hot water shower, a toilet that does not flush and the list goes on!. Yesterday I met some French students, who are working on Risk Management for Farmers and had dinner with them.
A large problem with the bar is that it attracts many expats and other weird locals who bring the prostitutes with them, in a way its sad, out of 80 people at the bar last night I would say their was maybe 20 prostitutes, and since I was new they would constantly harass me. In a way it is also frustrating that these westerners come here and hire out a room with a prostitute. I was talking about this to an America guy who had been living in the area for over 10 years (he actually owes mines in the congo) and he said the majority of people who come for the prostitutes are the westerners, he also made a comment that I really cant judge as there was prostitutes in Aus, but the difference was here they didnt hide, which made it more obvious.
My first class was today. I atually got lost walking there and had to ask some people where it was, luckily they couldnt speak english and in my broken swahili I asked them, how to get to the place, most of their reply I even understood which I was proud of, what would have been useful though is if they had actually given me the correct directions.
Anyway I have a huge headache from the sun. Im going to get beer !
Cheers
Joe
ps Gin and Tonic is going for 2 USD brillant
A large problem with the bar is that it attracts many expats and other weird locals who bring the prostitutes with them, in a way its sad, out of 80 people at the bar last night I would say their was maybe 20 prostitutes, and since I was new they would constantly harass me. In a way it is also frustrating that these westerners come here and hire out a room with a prostitute. I was talking about this to an America guy who had been living in the area for over 10 years (he actually owes mines in the congo) and he said the majority of people who come for the prostitutes are the westerners, he also made a comment that I really cant judge as there was prostitutes in Aus, but the difference was here they didnt hide, which made it more obvious.
My first class was today. I atually got lost walking there and had to ask some people where it was, luckily they couldnt speak english and in my broken swahili I asked them, how to get to the place, most of their reply I even understood which I was proud of, what would have been useful though is if they had actually given me the correct directions.
Anyway I have a huge headache from the sun. Im going to get beer !
Cheers
Joe
ps Gin and Tonic is going for 2 USD brillant
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