I’ve posted about music in Kenya several times… There’s a lot of talent in Kenya, guys! East Africa in general has such a diverse range of music. Just hop in a matatu in Nairobi and you’ll hear some crazy beats booming. These two artists are a bit old, so most Kenyans have known them for at least a year, but hey! I’m not Kenyan! Enjoy!
Stella Mwangi, aka STL, is a Kenyan but she moved to Norway at four years old. Just listen!
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Haha, actually, computer bugs suck, and even Linux crashes. Anyways, the ATM in Tala had this error on the screen the other day when I was getting some money. It was working fine, just a little slower than normal. I even got a chance to practice Swahili with a mama (mama is a respectful word for a woman, pronounce it like in Spanish, with the accent on the second “a”). When I left the booth I tried to explain to her that it was broken, but only a bit, and that it was still working: imeharibika kidogo, lakini inafanya kazi. She looked a bit puzzled so I reassured her that I had withdrawn money, but that the machine was working slowly. She seemed relieved, so I hope it worked… I didn’t stick around to see if she was successful.
On a side note, I’m cooking some fried rice with enough cilantro to kill a horse. Just another Friday night alone in Tala… good thing I have Linux and death metal.
I just woke up and remembered a dream I was having… in Swahili. It wasn’t all Swahili but it’s a sign that I’m on my way to being fluent. You always hear people talking about whether they can dream in a language other than their mother tongue, so it must be a significant event. I was never fluent in Spanish, but after studying it for five years and growing up in San Diego I probably got pretty close. Having said that, I don’t remember having any dreams in Español.
As far as I can remember the dream, I was at a movie theater somewhere. I think I had snuck in and gotten kicked out, or I dunno. The part I remember is telling some little Kenyan kid ukiingia utachapwa (“if you enter you will get hit”). That’s all I remember. Maybe I wasn’t sneaking in, maybe I was working there, who knows. Anyways, let’s hope I have more dreams in Swahili because it’s a pretty funny phenomenon.
On a side note, my Spanish sucks now. Any simple sentence I try to create in my head comes out in Swahili. Oh well. Hopefully it’s still in there somewhere.