My original vision of keeping this blog was that it
would be a slight variation of a diary, less personal of course, but I had
planned to essentially compose posts that were in a list-like format of what I
had done that day/week/what have you. I have only spent six days here so far,
but in that short time it has already become extremely clear to me that I have much
more insight to offer through this blog than a fun-to-read list.
So
far the goal of most of the discussions we have had and activities we have done
is to get us oriented to living a Zanzibarian lifestyle. Here is a short list
of the things most prominent in my mind that feel like entirely new
experiences: a traditional, but delicious, dinner at a remarkable lady named
Mama Abla’s house (and almost all the other food we have eaten); yesterday, we
were split into groups and each group was lead to a different area of town
where our instructors left us with a list of tasks to be completed, and
afterwards having to find our way back to our headquarters; intensive Swahili
lessons, and driving through the rural areas surrounding Stonetown. I should
also mention that until today we have been staying in Stonetown. Traveling to
Paje today, a smaller, more rural town on the East Coast of Zanzibar, was our
first introduction to the rural parts of the island, and I must say they are
quite a sight.
Although
I could tell you many great things about all of the above, I have chosen to
focus on the element that has been stirring my emotions and shifting my thoughts
and perspectives the most. As some of you may know, when I was in high school I
pursued a quest to become fluent in both Spanish and French. Career plans I had
were heavily based on the language skills I had acquired at that point. I also
planned on studying in Paris for a semester in college. However on a somewhat
rebellious quest to discover my “true passions” I lost all of my lingual skills
as well as the compulsion I once felt for becoming tri-lingual. Introduction to
Swahili, in a sense, has re-awoken that intrigue. For that, I am very thankful.
I enjoyed learning language so much because I had a gift or knack for them you
could say, they came easily to me. But school is school and the rebellious
phase I previously mentioned caused me to feel disdain towards anything anyone
who was in a position of authority told me to do. I can not honestly say I
regret bringing my studies of these languages to an end, but now I can
retroactively see the ways in which continuing them could have been beneficial
to me. I have become hyper-sensitive to the enormous capacity language has to
act as a bridge, to break down walls, to become keys to open doors, and to
create doors you could not have previously been aware existed.
All
that being noted, what has been the most thought provoking to me is the way our
lessons began. Granted all of what I am about to say could simply be a product
of our course being an intensive language course, or due to the fact that in 3
days we will be placed in a family and need to know the most basic of basic
communication skills to keep from becoming socially isolated; but nonetheless
it has made a profound impact on my views towards this culture, my culture, and
Western culture in general.
Our
first lesson we were, what felt like, bombarded with the wide array of
greetings used in the Swahili language; more importantly, but unbeknownst to us
at the time, in Kiswahili culture. The importance of greetings can be found
through tradition and longstanding culture, so our “walimu” said, but the explanation
given to us about why greeting people here is such a necessity is beautifully
simple. When you greet some one, fundamentally what you are doing is
acknowledging their presence, vocalizing that you know they are there and that
in some way or another their presence is important to you.
Here is a practical
application to demonstrate this point: You are walking to the market and on the
way you pass by many shops, some may house storeowners who are preoccupied with
customers, others have people just sitting around but you walk by all of them
without a word. You take a wrong turn and after a couple minutes of walking you
realize you have gone the wrong way and are not headed toward the market. You
decide to retrace your steps and when you arrive back at the familiar stores
you had already passed, you see numerous shops with people in them who appear
to not be busy. So, you ask them for assistance to your final destination. In
Zanzibar, the streets are not like streets in the states. They are narrow winding
alleyways between buildings and churches and are very easy to get lost quickly
in. This, for one of many reasons, is why people do not tell you directions.
Instead they will walk you or find some one else heading that way to walk you
where you need to go. But why should some one give you their time, if you could
not even give a little bit of yours to acknowledge they were there? It may seem silly at first, but with
deeper thought this unspoken required balance/way of interacting is very
reasonable and may explain on some level, the willingness of people to do
things for you in your own culture.
Greetings we learned were
phrases we would consider in the states to be small talk. We learned to ask
people how they were, how their parents were, how they slept the night before,
how the last meal they had eaten was, etc. All of these questions begin with
the word “habari” meaning what is the news? So direct translations come out to
be questions like “what is the news about you?” somewhat equivalent to the way
we would ask “how are you?” Consequently, the norm is to answer any question beginning
with “habari” is to say “nzuri,” meaning good. In the words of our intelligent
Bi Asia, “If some one asks you “habari” and you are about to drop dead, you
answer with “nzuri” and then you can die.” The time I have spent here so far
seems to reflect that this is a widespread and deeply ingrained mindset in most
Zanzibari people. That is, even if something bad is happening life is still
good.
Our
next couple lessons were filled with vocabulary to teach us how to tell people
our names, where we were from, where we were staying currently and to ask of them
the same. It was not until our fourth or fifth lesson that we started learning
possessive pronouns and verb conjugations, grammar and structure. But right
now, in Swahili I could tell you where I am going, where my friends are
staying, that I will help my mother with house work when I am home from school,
what the teacher tried to cook for dinner last night, even so we still have not
learned to verb to have nor has it come up in any of our exercises. Initial
instruction in the other languages I took immediately delved into learning to
talk about what we have and placed the utmost importance on writing and saying
everything correctly, even if it meant sacrificing the ability to form some
sort of a relationship. Grammar and structure seemed to be far more important
to learn than how to carry on a simple two or three minute conversation with
some one.
In
my opinion, the order of what we are learning in Kiswahilil speaks immensely
about the values of the people here, and vice versa for the Western values. The
way in which the language has been taught to us seems to dictate that the
ability to form relationships with others is priceless compared to anything
else. I will leave my explanations of learning European languages and my
opinions about Western culture up for interpretation. I must reiterate that all of this could be the function of
something completely different than the culture and its values and all the
above could be a bunch of bologna. Either way, it is something interesting to
ponder :]
~Until Next
Time~
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