J O Y

I can’t believe so much has happened since my last update! (And I was the one that said I didn’t think much would be happening during the week)!
Well, to start with…Monday Jan 14 was wonderful!!! I woke up with my spirits lifted and a better attitude. It was such a refreshing feeling!! I don’t really know why the day was so good because I just had class all day, but for tea/snack time at 10am and 4pm we had Maandazi!!!! This is my absolute favorite food in Tanzania and Selina (my Tanzanian sister) used to make it for us!! The best explanation of Maandazi if I had to describe it would be that it is a mini donut without sugar but with the same sweetness and it is about half the size of your fist (like a roll). YUM!!! Pastor Hafermann also said that we are going on an adventure on Friday, so that excited me as well! Therefore I get to “miss class.” As in, I don’t get to be here, but my teacher can come with me and we do the lessons in the land rover and at the place we’re going! After tea I went on a walk around the compound with Andrea and Sophia the two German girls. Andrea is studying the language with me and Sophia is teaching Kindergarten here for a year. I did not realize how large this place was! I suppose there is the language school, kindergarten, secondary school (Form 1-Form 6 students, which is like 7th grade- first year in college), plus the seminary…also all of the teachers/workers houses! During the walk I was able to see an even better view of the Uhluru (I think) Mountains behind the school! I think they are the 4th highest in Tanzania! I cannot wait to climb it with some teachers at school…sometime in the next two months!! After dinner I did some journaling and studying until bedtime.

Tuesday January 15
I had class all morning of course, and then I did not go to lunch… I just couldn’t handle any more carbs + carbs + more carbs. Haha So I had a granola bar in my room and caught up on some e-mailing and journaling for the two other classes through Wartburg. By the end of the afternoon session (2:30-4) I was fed up with lessons because the last thing we learned was the first concept I really wasn’t getting (negative tense…yes, there’s a tense for negative). I think I was just so overwhelmed with information that I could NOT focus or retain anything. I also learned that there is no verb “to feel” in the language and that frustrated me for awhile. I know that not all words translate literally but I still don’t know exactly why I was frustrated. Maybe because the verb they use is “to hear.” I hear pain…that’s the literal translation. The other verb is “to have,” which makes more sense and is closer to “feel.” I have pain, or I feel pain. Feelings are so fleeting anyway, right? So, maybe it is a good thing that they do not have a word to use…but I also believe that God gave us feelings and they can be powerful if used/harnessed correctly.
Once class was over and we went town I felt much better! It was a good break…just to get away from the school for a couple of hours!! Andrea, Mee-ha (a new student…a woman from South Korea originally but she and her husband live in Mombasa, Kenya doing church-planting), and myself went to town and took a Dala Dala again. It is always exciting to ride in a Dala Dala!! We walked around town and went to the supermarket where I wanted to get some crackers and some “cookies,” (crackers with chocolate in the middle)! Because…for the past week my friends here have been joking after meals~ ok, so I’m ready for chocolate cakey and we always laughed because that sounds like SUCH a delicacy right now…or ice cream! Anyway, in class I also learned that they weren’t making up the word cakey…it is pronounced exactly like that, but spelled “keki.” HaHa. I was very surprised at how expensive some items were as I had a few more minutes to look around. Some cereal similar to Honey Nut Cheerios was about 8000 schillings-over $8 for sure! I thought $3-3.50 was expensive for cereal back home! Some cereal was over $10!!! The products are much of the same. There is a lot of tea of course, but also laundry/household cleaning items, wine, toiletries, cookies/crackers/a cooler with ice cream treats and a cool section with cans of juice and some dairy products.
I was VERY excited to buy kitanga cloth (authentic Tanzanian) so I can get my skirt and bag made. I think so I can “fit in” more in the culture?!
Andrea knows a woman at a shop who makes skirts and bags from the kitanga material so we have to go back in one week to pick them up!
We had to go to the “Dala Dala station” in town and find one that would take us by the School…but we had to sit for 15-20minutes and wait until it filled up…because remember, they pack them FULL. There were about 23 people crammed in to this very old and run-down “van!” However, the woman sitting next to me ended up being a math teacher at one of the schools here and knew English very well, so we tried speaking Swahili so she could help us! I still don’t know very much so Andrea tried very hard!! The people around us really enjoyed that we were trying to speak it, and they laughed with us!! We returned around 6:30pm and had to rush to get to dinner…I did not have much time last night to do much of anything as journaling took a while and I had to study a little bit at least!!

Wednesday January 16, 2008

Today was wonderful as well!! I was feeling just like I did on Monday~ refreshed, and positive…but not until after breakfast and class got going. We went over what I didn’t understand yesterday and things started making more sense finally!! Today we didn’t get through as many lessons because I always interject and ask questions which sometimes leads to tangents…like how Swahili does not have a verb meaning “to go to the bathroom.” They say, “ I will help myself” because then that could mean anything…Im going to check my hair/make-up etc…and no one needs to know anything! Then we proceeded to discuss other ways to go to the bathroom, as there are more slang words in Swahili for that. My teacher also wanted to know some English words for this topic… I won’t get into anymore!! :) We have a great time laughing…at me, because sometimes I’m reading sentences and although it’s an incredibly easy language to pronounce because it’s phonetic (everything sounds as it is spelled), I accidentally change words or forget a word and in Swahili, often times if you do either the former or latter it means a bad/gross word or something completely opposite. So, just one simple letter off means a lot!! For instance, the word “sababu” means (doubt), but as I was reading I said “sabubu” on accident…just say it out loud as it sounds much more funny!!! :) This language is so silly really… the words make me laugh all the time! My favorite verb/word to say is kulala (to sleep)! So, to say I sleep, it is nalala or to say I slept, it would be Nililala… N i l i l a l a . That is your kiiswahili lesson for the day!
At tea time today I was able to talk to Godfried (the 21-year-old teacher) about Wartburg and climbing the mountain some Saturday. He always wears Wartburg T-shirts, or Wartburg track and field ones, or Iowa! I should get him a Minnesota one!! :)
I was able to work out with my Tae Bo tape today! Exercise is great because all day I am sitting while I study or eating carbs at meals :) so you can imagine what kind of healthy diet that is!! Once the weekend gets here I should be doing more walking with Pastor H. and Luka! Dinner tonight was excellent! (oh I almost forgot to mention, at lunch we had something different! Hamburgers!! But I do not know what kind of meat…some hamburger at least!!) 2 new young women came who are studying the language for a couple weeks! One from Germany, Nicole, and Olivia, from South Carolina originally but now has been living here I believe. Also, we had green beans (which alone are not tasty but mixed with potatoes and rice were great! I was thankful for something Green)!! I’m glad our small table of 4 has grown!! Also, some of us are farther along than others, which makes for interesting conversation! English is overall used, but we try at Swahili. It is a big joke amongst us Language School students that Sister Aileen (from the Congo) is actually a teacher because she is such a fast learner and better than all of us (even Sister Annette and Andrea who started 1-2 days before her)!

My heart is so full of joy! It’s not like it ever left but the Evil one can have such a stronghold on us sometimes that we are blinded and forget…or choose not to experience that joy and freedom and life that only Christ can give. During my afternoon break I sat in a chair outside of my door and faced the sun and just layed back and closed my eyes while I listened to some music, and I thought…this is why I am here. This country, this school, this schedule- everything about why I am here is SO good for my soul. That’s what it comes down to. God knows my passions and what brings me joy (because he gave them to me) and this country, it’s people, and languages and intercultural communication and I get All of it…everyday. That is why dinner was so great tonight, because at times, there would be English, Swahili, and German being spoken all with different accents! I just love MeeHa’s Asian accent! She’s so cute! And Sister Aileen laughs every single time before she can say anything practically~ it’s very comical!! :)
Well, I better get to some journaling and studying- I have a “test” tomorrow morning!!

Blessings to you all as you try to stay warm…I would give you some of my heat if I could!!! (Although it has not been bad at all lately…unless I’m getting used to it)! I won’t give you any of my sun though ;) I was perfectly fine being white at home but maybe I won’t stick out AS much! J The male students seemed to enjoy my blonde hair as I walked by some on the way to class on Monday! (maybe I should have dyed my hair dark before I left)! :)

Lala salaama! (sleep well)

With a joyous heart,
Alana :)


"A joyful heart makes a cheerful face" Proverbs 15:13