March 6, 2022:  Life in Kenya
Kidogo Kidogo Hujaza Kibaba is another Kiswahili saying we have heard quite often.  It translates to:  Little by Little Fills Container.  The “container” at the present moment in time is in reference to our heads!  We are not sure how much more our minds can adsorb with Kiswahili but we forge ahead trusting that we will get to that point of being able to speak and have the words that come out of one’s mouth make sense.  One of the priests at our meals keeps telling us that one day it will just come out right…we can’t wait for that day!  As of last week, our teacher speaks Kiswahili only about 90% of the time in class and that makes it even harder.  Because Kathy was quite confused at one point, she simply said “swali” which means one has a question.  Kathy gave it her best to ask in Kiswahili and in response to her question, the teacher wrote the word “kuchanganyikiwa” on the board.  The word means to be confused which Kathy was though Wes admitted he was too!  Yes, if one counts the number of letters in that word it adds up to fifteen!  There a lot of words that are quite long and just changing even one letter gives it a whole new meaning.  We have a running list of words we try to go over each day when we study back in our room – that list is up to around 2000 words!  Even though one doesn’t feel all that intelligent some days when leaving a class, we keep telling ourselves we do know more than when we arrived in January and that gives us hope.  We will be at language school until April 8 and will then head back to the mission which we are looking forward to doing.  We would be lying if we said learning a new language has been fun so we won’t lie!  But we are grateful that we have learned words that even if we are not able to construct the best sentences, we are able to understand a fair amount.  The easiest parts of class are when a sentence in Kiswahili is written on the board and we need to translate it to Kiingereza (English).  The hardest is when we have to take the sentences that are written in English and make a sentence using only Kiswahili.  Kidogo Kidogo Hujaza Kibaba

As mentioned in the last blog the language school is on the grounds of a seminary and shamba (small farm).  We find it very relaxing each day to take a break from studying to walk around the shamba.  Last week a baby lamb (kondoo) was born and recently some baby pigs (nguruwe)…our excitement!   We have not ventured outside of the compound much but hope to take some time during the remaining weekends to visit the giraffe and elephant sanctuaries which are very near.

Recently, the language school held a Cultural Awareness Day where the different cultures of the tribes and countries represented here at the seminary are celebrated.  A speaker was brought in and the seminarians displayed the culture of their tribes and/or different countries with dance, song, poetry and music. After the event was over a meal depicting foods from some of those countries was served.  It was a display of much color with their costumes as well as very informative.  There were numerous countries and tribes represented from African especially Kenya, Uganda and the Congo.  We also saw seminarians holding flags from Slovakia, Germany, South America and the United States.  We have met the young man from the United States who is from Texas.  He is with the Missionaries of Charity (Blessed Mother Teresa). 

We are grateful to be here at the school/seminary during the season of Lent.  On Friday evening, we experienced the Stations of the Cross (Vituo vya Msalaba) outdoors.  Prior to the stations starting, a group of seminarians posted a laminated picture depicting each of the stations around the grounds on trees.  Prayers and meditations were read at each station.  The meditations were very moving and we look forward to attending the Stations each week that we are here. 

The last two weekends on Saturday evening we helped Dennis, George, Andrew and Kennedy to make Chapati, a type of unleavened flatbread.  These young men are in the seminary here.  As we roll dough, they try to help us with some Kiswahili.  This past Saturday when we entered the kitchen, songs by Kenny Rogers and a few other country western artists were coming from their phones.  They are fans of country western music! Watching them roll the dough seemed like it wasn’t going to be all that hard but we found out it is not as easy as it looks.  They need to be circles as opposed to a square as that is the shape of the pan the chapati are cooked in.  They kept telling us we were doing fine but our chapati didn’t look fine!  It really is a lot of fun spending time with them so we will probably join them as many Saturday evenings as possible. 

We will try our best to get at least one more blog done before we go back to the mission.  We are often asked if we are homesick and truth be told we are.  We miss family and friends so know you are all in our prayers and ask you do the same for us.  May you have a blessed and holy Lent.  Mungu Awabariki

Check out more photosin the album page

https://stjparish.com/photoalbums/kenya-3-6-22