After having divided ourselves in groups of 4 or 5 the previous evening, we were to start our first day of Swahili lessons. Somehow I felt transported back in time to my school days. The youngest ones of us, that was Kevin, Sandra, Sara, Mathew (the 12 year old son of a volunteer couple) and myself formed the group ‘Ndizi chisi’. We had to give ourselves the name of a fruit in Swahili, so we went for ‘Crazy bananas’. Learning a language in 2 weeks seems a quite daunting mission in any case, so the set-up of small groups and 6 hours of lessons a day makes it feel at least a little more viable. The first 2 hours were devoted to greetings - a big difference between Swahili in Kenya and Tazania: While Kenyans like
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