Useful Kiswahili

First, a shout out to my peeps in Houston. Hope you are still afloat. I just came out of an Indian restaurant where they had CNN on, which I think may be a minor miracle in itself. Footage from Hurricane Rita looks bad but not as bad as Katrina. But we'll see how things unfold. Am praying for the best. (Praying? Has Kenya turned me into a prayer?)

So I continue to be a bit obsessive about foreign languages, so here is another rambling about Kiswahili. Most Peace Corps volunteers have a collection of useful Kiswahili phrases that they bust out on a regular basis. There's the standard "sawa sawa" (fine, okay) because it just rolls off the tongue, or "pole sana" (very sorry) because it's useful in a variety of situations.

"Bwana" (mister, a polite form of address for men) is a handy way to politen even the most obnoxious demands. "That's a total ripoff, bwana. I'm not paying." This is also true of "tafadhali" (please), which no self-respecting Kenyan ever uses. Someone even told me that tafadhali and asante (thank you) are associated with begging. But Kiswahili sounds really blunt and demanding when translated directly into English, so tacking on a tafadhali, even though it marks you as a hopeless mzungu, lets you get away with a lot more. "Get lost, tafadhali," makes you feel less like an insensitive boar when you're running away from street kids lunging for your chocolate eclair.

"Kwa sababu..." (because...) and "inategemea" (it depends...) should be in every educator's repertoire both for their meaning and for their pleasant rhythmic quality, while being able to distinguish between "baada ya" (after) and "badala ya" (instead of) can earn you a few laughs at the bar: Tusker beer's slogan is "Tusker baada ya kazi" - Tusker after work. A Peace Corps volunteer's slogan after a crap week at site: "Tusker badala ya kazi" - Tusker instead of work.

"Ngoja" (wait) and "bado" (not yet) are useful for those bus rides when the driver starts pulling out of the parking lot and your friend is still in the pit latrine.

My personal favorite: "hakuna nafasi" (no room) because it has two very specific uses: to tell someone you really, honestly can't eat anymore ugali (hakuna nafasi kwa tumbo - no room in stomach) and to protest the 40th person trying to get onto your 15-person matatu. It can also mean no opportunity or no spare time, which is a good way to get out of doing something you don't want to do. Speaking of matatus, I used to confuse "funga" (to close) and "fungua" (to open)...until I started taking matatus in rural areas where the 15-person maximum capacity is rarely enforced. Forty people packed eyeball to eyeball in a matatu, emitting that charming Kenyan body odor, taught me real fast how to say, "Fungua dirisha! Fungua dirisha!" Open the window! Open the window!