I recently spent the night with the family of Michael, a Tanzanian who works at Houghton's campus in Tanzania. This was a terrific opportunity to see family life in Tanzania, but posed its own challenges.
During the evening Michael showed me the bed where I would be staying (I ended sharing a room with a chicken... true story!). This dialogue in Swahili and English followed:
Noel [Wanting to know whose bed he may have just stolen]: Who normally sleeps here?
Michael [Looking confused]: You want me to sleep with you?
Noel [Eager to eliminate confusion]: No, no, no... whose bed is this?
Michael [Still looking confused]: No, I sleep in the other room... you want to sleep with me?
Noel [Feeling quite proud of the fact that he though of approaching it from this angle]: Who slept here yesterday?
Michael [Undoubtably frusted with this stupid mzungu... white guy]: You want to stay here tomorrow?
Noel [Grabbing at threads]: Hamna shida (means "no problems" or "don't worry about it" Swahili).
4 comments:
lol!! gotta love threads. that's so funny noel. thanks for sharing.
how goes everything?
i've been actually thinking a lot about cambodia...
HAHAHA!! Noel! I'm giggling out my ears! I'm glad to hear everything is going... well, just fine. grins
Hey, ever heard of ELI (Empowering Lives International)? Well, I'm looking into setting up an internship with them doing sustainable dev. in the TZ/Kenya region. I'm TERRIBLY excited. :) Because it also means I'll also be able to see Kat and Paul (and Paul C. if he's there at that point), and see an area of the world that has had a deep and lasting impression on my closest of friends (or most of them, I should say). :) Si Dios quiere. Lord willing.
This was so GREAT to read! That was the funniest thing I've heard today. :~) Thanks for sharing your story!
Noel I absolutely love it!! So good to catch up on your travels!!
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