James In Tanzania: Morogoro

Monday 16 July 2012

Morogoro

Just finished a week of swahili language training in the beautiful surroundings of Morogoro. We stayed in a convent that is also run as a guest house.. the nuns were ace! - drinking beer on Friday afternoon and cracking open the red wine on Saturday lunchtime!! The course was intense, it used to be 3 weeks but has been squeezed down to 8 days. I could do with 8 more weeks- although I now know the basics - greetings, haggling at the market, asking directions and past, present and future tenses of verbs! Swahili is actually a difficult language to master (it has 13 different noun classes!)! We did get one day off with the choice of a safari or a hike up the mountain.. I chose the hike, and was pleased I did.. 3 of our group and a guide walked up through little villages on the mountainside, past crops of mangoes, bananas, guava, rice, strawberries and beans. The children in the villages all ran out to greet us with cries of "Muzungu Muzungu" - literal translation is "white person"! Most of the children of primary school age can speak some basic English, so we were greeted by many "how are you?" and "what is your name"... it put my Swahili to shame!!!. Again I was amazed by the resourcefulness and resilience of the locals.. as we struggled up the pretty steep hill in full hiking boots, rucksacks, enough water and food for a week long expedition and sweating buckets we were overtaken by a woman with a full basket on her head, carrying a child in a sling on her back and wearing FLIP FLOPS!

The hike took us up to a lovely waterfall about half way up the mountain (1500m).. which was far too cold to have a swim in!!!

I'm now back in Dar for a night, and am flying down to my placement in Mtwara tomorrow to start working finally!!!

Hope you like the pictures!