Kiswahili ni lugha ngumu. - Swahili is a difficult language.

Like every other weekday today was spent in Swahili class. The difference was that the past few days I seem to have slammed into a brick wall. Last week and even the beginning of this week, Swahili seemed to just come to me – the language made sense and I could catch on very quickly. But something changed during the week, all of a sudden I couldn’t just pick up the language. I quickly became frustrated during our small group sessions. I would be given a drill and the words just didn’t come out right – not to mention, the vocabulary was no longer sticking in my mind. I would ask myself every day, “What is wrong with me that everyone else can pick this up and I feel like I’m taking shots in the dark?” Well, I am slowly working my way out of the darkness (let me tell you, its not very easy work) and in the meantime, I have gained an appreciation for the other students here and our teachers.
Today especially, I have spent a fair amount of time just sitting around and watching the people from all different countries communicating. (It truly reminds me to the Tower of Babel story.) Here, we have to either speak Swahili or English in order to be able to communicate with the people around us. But the thing I enjoy most is watching two people from different language backgrounds (neither being English) speak to one another in English. Neither person is speaking in grammatically correct sentences - but they make it work and they understand one another. It just shows the capacity and need for the human sprit to have companionship.
The other thing that I’ve spent a fair amount of time thinking about today is the other students here. Today, two people left – Jody and Father Roy. It made me think about how I want to spend my time here. We are here for three months and then we get to go back home to familiarity. But everyone else here is staying for a year or even more – they will depend on their Swahili in order to communicate while they live here. I want to get the most out of my short time here. We are already starting our third week in the country and have less than three months left to experience this wonderful place. The downside of this, is that it makes me want to be done with the learning Swahili stage and move on to the talking with people and immersion stage. I am ready to be at the point in our studies where we are competent enough to hold a conversation with the people around us… not just exchange greetings. I know that a lot of that will come with confidence, and that is what I need so desperately to work on right now. I need to feel confident enough to just talk and let mistakes happen – otherwise I won’t learn.
Peace.