Some interesting "adjustment stories" from the week

 I've been writing a few posts on my computer over the last few days, so I'm posting them all at once now that I've found time to get to an internet cafe.  Enjoy some random stories from the week:

My host brother (kaka) thought it was hilarious when I had trouble pronouncing "forty" (arobaini) in Kiswahili.  It came out as everything from arbolanini to arololibni.  I'm pretty sure I'm not going to live this one down.  Now whenever he wants to tease me he just says "arobaini" nonchalantly and waits for me to catch on.  We laugh a lot together.

In Kiswahili class this week, one of our instructors (all of whom are Tanzanian) was attempting to teach us us the words for "fat" and "skinny" without using English.  He did a little mime of fat and skinny, then pointed to each person in the class in turn, labeling each in turn as fat or skinny to make his lesson clear.  We all started laughing and squirming uncomfortably, which concused him until we explained that in the U.S. it's pretty impolite to point at someone and call them fat.  "Really?" he said, "What about short and tall? Is this offensive too?"  He was honestly confused about why this was considered impolite.  Totally understandable, but it also gave us a good laugh.

There's a lot of social emphasis on age here.  There's a particular word (shikamoo) that you use to greet anyone significantly older than you.  A few days ago I was walking around the neighborhood, passed a woman who was sitting on her front step with several children, and said "shikamoo" accordingly.  They all started laughing, and she gave the appropriate response (marahaba) in about as comical a voice as she could muster.  Apparently I had overestimated her age pretty significantly.  It's odd to have to make a split-second age judgement everytime you meet someone. 

You've no doubt heard the term "Hakuna Matata" from the Lion King.  It's an actual Kiswahili phrase, but they tend to use it more in Kenya.  Here they say "Hakuna shida" or "Hamna shida."  Our trainers often look for ways to calm down trainees who are worried about all the pressures of training.  "Hamna shida" comes up a lot, but one trainer in particular likes to say (with a heavy Swahili accent): "Don't shit bricks."

My new favorite Kiswahili word is "shagalabaghala" (pronounced roughly: SHAH-gah-lah-BAH-gah-lah; say it fast, it has a fun rhythm).  It means something like "things in a mess."  It's a word a mother might use to describe her child's messy room.  But far more fun is to use it to poke fun at the way someone is dressed.  People take care to dress well here, and compliments on looks are common (and are not auromatically thought of as come-ons).  So it can be pretty fun to go up to a well dressed friend and say "Umevaa shagalabaghala" (you're dressed like a mess).  It's another one of those things that gets my kaka laughing hysterically.