Hujambo!

I saw this Swahili kanga on Google the other day, a celebration of the East African Community:

Umoja ni nguvu, utengano ni udhaifu

The phrase is some deep Tanzanian Swahili, but I cracked the code with a little dictionary magic: “Unity is strength, separation is weakness.”

Read more

I was in Tanzania for a few days over the Easter holiday. I always figure, living in Kenya, it’s the closest I can get to being in San Diego and hopping over the border to Mexico to eat a few tacos. It’s only a 5 hour bus ride to the decently-sized town of Arusha, and once you’re there the going is cheap and easy. My favorite part is the street food at night; people set up grills and sell all sorts of great finger foods for just a few shillings. Even better, I’ve never felt unsafe in Arusha.

After a great weekend wandering around Arusha and Moshi (the town just below Mt. Kilimanjaro), I came back to the Kenyan border and waited in line to be interrogated by the customs agents. I have a valid Tanzanian visa, and a valid Kenyan work permit, but for some reason the lady decided to be difficult. When she asked me “Where are you going?” I told her “Westlands,” which was apparently the wrong answer, because she asked me “Where is Westlands?” After a few more rounds of me hearing her incorrectly and giving more “wrong” answers, I finally told her, “Nairobi” and she let me go.

I don’t know if she was trying to catch me in a lie… or maybe she decided that, because Westlands is a suburb of Nairobi, the correct answer should be “Nairobi?” What if I wasn’t going to Nairobi? Would Nairobi still be the correct answer? We will never know…

A great song by one of Kenya’s better-known artists, Jua Cali. I’m not sure why I never heard it until now because it’s been out since late 2008. Anyways, it’s Jua Cali and Enika (apparently she’s from Tanzania). It’s a nice break from all the “I’m a thug” and “get money and bitches” music that is becoming so popular (even in Kenya). From what I can understand (and from what we see in the video), Jua Cali is reminiscing about when he was a young boy discovering his love for music.

If you want to download the MP3 you should head over to GetMziki because it was featured on their blog when the song was released.

Randi and I are back from our East Africa safari but, other than the few pictures we uploaded along the way, we have nothing to show for it! My fancy Nokia camera phone decided to eat all the pictures we took. There are lots of great stories to be told, though, like the day I swapped t-shirts with some dude on the streets of Dar Es Salaam.

It went down like this: Randi and I had decided Dar Es Salaam was way too hot and humid, and we hadn’t had a cup of coffee in a couple of days. We noticed a sign saying “Coffee Lounge” outside a fairly classy building in a nicer part of town (read: probably had air conditioning), so we went inside to investigate. It was there, climbing the stairs, that I saw a dude coming down the stairs with a shirt written “Niko Juu!!” (slang, literally “I’m up”… or ahead). He kinda paused when he saw me, and then I told him, “Wee, shirt yako iko poa. Tubadilishane?” (Dude, your shirt is cool, let’s trade). To my surprise he took his off immediately and we traded right then and there. So if you see some dude walking around Tanzania with a Ramones shirt it’s probably the same guy. Hopefully he enjoys telling the story as much as I do!

The rest of our trip went off without a hitch. We did eat a lot of mangoes and gelatto in Watamu and Malindi, just like we said we would! We ate so many mangoes in Watamu that as we were leaving one mama told us “Unalipa moja, na nikupe moja. Zawadi.” (You pay for one, and I give you one. Gift.). Randi’s back in the US now, and I start work on Monday, so I gotta get back into the routine of things around here. In other news, I’m finally moved into my new apartment, just down the road from the penthouse I was staying in before, but I’ll wait until it’s all furnished to post some pictures.

Tumefika salama lakini tumechoka, tumekuwa chafu, na hatujala all day! Dar Es Salaam ilikuwa poa kwasababu tulitembea kila mahali mpaka tulikuwa wenyeji wa huko. Leo ni mwaka mpya so tunajienjoy kwa chumba na maembe na maji safi ya kunywa.

We have arrived safely but we are tired, dirty, and we haven’t eaten all day! Dar Es Salaam was cool because we walked everywhere until we became locals of that place! Today is New Year’s Eve so we are enjoying ourselves in our hotel room with mangos and clean drinking water.

That’s my bit of prose in Swahili. It’s all most people speak in Tanzania, so I had a lot of practice. I guess now I speak Swahili at the level of like a two-year-old kid (I think my vocabulary needs to improve a bit). I’m glad to be back in Kenya, though, because now I can use English and just the fun parts of Swahili: sheng! We spent our last day in Dar Es Salaam walking around the docks investigating smelly fish and eating fresh mangos by the bay. We happened upon a really nice hotel and decided to go in for a cup of coffee and a slice of mud pie. Marble floors, air conditioning, and everything. Very relaxing!
Read more