What We're Doing
Hamjambo from Mombasa!
Ok, so before I sound like too much of a white tourist (who are notorious for running around shouting “Jambo! Jambo!” in East Africa, as it’s the only word they know), let me say that we started our study of the Swahili language this morning. I was lucky enough to have taken a month’s worth of classes in Swahili over January in Middlebury, so I have a head start, but it’s exciting to begin again in Kenya. So, as a student of Swahili, I say to all of you, “Hamjambo!” which means, oddly enough, “Is there anything the matter with you?” Y’all would respond “Hatujambo!” or “There is nothing the matter with us!”
Anyway, in this post, I thought I’d give y’all a brief overview of what I’m doing over here, who I’m with, as well as what we did today. I haven’t done that yet, and some of y’all might be confused.
I’m studying abroad in Mombasa through SIT, a Vermont-based organization that manages study abroad trips for students all across the globe. The program title is “Islam and Swahili Cultural Identity”, and we’re studying just that - the culture and language of coastal Kenya and Tanzania.
Right now, for orientation, we’re staying in Mombasa, at the SIT guest house, which is located in a part of the city called Old Town (Google Map Link). On Friday, we’ll be heading to a village in Taita, Kenya, for our rural homestay. There, we’ll be studying Swahili, living with a family, and joining with the community to help build a library for the school there. We’ll be there for 9 days, then we’ll spend a night in the Tsavo National Park on safari (AWESOME) before we head up to Lamu (by way of Melindi, basically a vacation town). In Lamu, we’ll keep studying Swahili.
So, that’s a rundown of the next month or so. After that, we’ll do a homestay back in Mombasa before we get to our Independent Study Project (ISP), which I’ll talk about later.
Today though, we went to Fort Jesus, a fort in Old Town that, fittingly, was made in the shape of Jesus. And by “Jesus”, I mean just a man walking. Close enough - google it. It was originally built by the Portuguese in 1593, and has changed hands 9 times by the various powers who controlled Mombasa. It makes sense - I mean, who wouldn’t want to control a fort shaped like Jesus? Come on.
Finally, I snapped a few photos of our day - check them out here.
So, in closing, Mombasa is gorgeous, we’re having a great time, and this semester is going to be off the hook. Kwa heri!
