With Love, From Musoma

Dorms upstairs & classrooms downstairs

Welcome to my new home for the next 4 months! Makoko Language School- founded in 1964 by the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers. The school offers courses in Swahili and 3 other of the local tribal languages. I dorm here, along with two of my fellow Maryknoll Lay Missioners, two sisters- one from Nigeria, one from Poland, and two priests- one from the Philippines, and the other from Poland. I am the youngest on campus, but by the amount of fun we all have together, you would never be able to tell.

We attend class 5 days a week, 8:30 am to about 4 pm. We eat every meal together, and play tennis, volleyball, or ping-pong afterwards to release some of the stress of our working brain that has been on Swahili overload. I wake up every morning to the sound of African drums and singing from the young girls that live on campus next door, walk out my door and see the campus cow grazing in the field outside my room, go downstairs for a breakfast of freshly picked mango, papaya, and avocado and fresh eggs. Life is good.

Musoma itself is quite different from where I will be settling after graduation in May. (Mwanza)  It is about 4 hours north, still on the shore of beautiful Lake Victoria, but it is a very rural area. Makoko Language School is surrounded by a seminary, sisters house, and the local villages.

Our teachers encourage us to go out into the main town, or out around the village and apply the Swahili we have learned in class. So, since today was a national holiday for Tanzania (Zanzibar Revolution Day) some classmates and I went for a stroll down the dirt road which led to Lake Victoria, where children were splashing around in the water and families were gathered catching some rays in the sand.

After walking along the shore for a while, the dirt path took us up into the main area of the village, towards an area where the fishermen gathered to sell their daily catch, and sit to relax with a beer. There, we ran into one of our walimu (teachers), Joachim, who happens to be the village chief. We sat, had a local brewed beer with him and discussed Tanzanian traditions and the talk of the town. It was a nice break from baking in the warm sun all day. 

Tanzanian culture is so welcoming and the village people are so excited to see Wazungu (US/European visitors) living and speaking their language among them. As I was jogging through the village this past week, I had children running along side me giggling and yelling "Jambo! Mzungu! Mzungu!" Upbeat Swahili music was blasting from a home nearby, farmers were tending to their crops, and cows and goats were walking along the road eating grass, unbothered by the hustle and bustle of this beautiful little town. Every morning I take a deep breathe of African air, pinch myself to remind myself this is real life, and thank God for bringing me to this place that I will be calling home for the next 3.5 years.

Mungu ni nzuri. God is good.