Friday, July 24, 2015

Swahili with Juma Jigwa

Juma is one of the waiters at Springsland. He has also become our friend, and has been helping us to learn Swahili. Juma is on the right in the photo with Owen below. Elia, on the left, also helps us. I told them that when I answer basic questions in English to tell me to answer them in Swahili.
Juma has provided us with a cheat sheet/ study guide with various words and phrases.


 I also have a running list on my phone 


We practice our Swahili when we are in the dining room, garden and whenever we see Juma and the other staff around the hotel grounds. 
Last week, Juma gave Tashoy a written test! She did pretty well. 


Justin, Kelly and I have a test tomorrow before We leave for safari. I could pass this test, but if he gives us something harder I'm in trouble. The only animals I know are paka (cat), mbwa (dog), mbuzi (goat), kaka (chicken). 

Juma walked us over to the orphanage one afternoon after work 
He helped me translate texts I started getting from Brian written in Swahili! 
It wasn't easy though. Apparently the online translator uses "hard Swahili", which is spoken in Kenya, and they use "simple Swahili" here. 

Justin found an app that has an offline Swahili dictionary. We all have it on our phones now! 








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