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Kujifunza Kiswahili – Learning Swahili

February 14, 2012 in Africa, Front, Language, Life, Mark, Swahili, Tanzania

One of the most crucial parts of our adapting to living in Tanzania is being able to speak the national language – Swahili – to a reasonable level. Having spent 3 years in Tanzania before I am able to speak Swahili fairly well (I’m happy to report I haven’t forgotten too much…!), but Laura has only ever visited East Africa so has never had the chance to learn much Swahili.

In order to help her learn we are spending a few weeks at a Swahili language school along with some of our colleagues, near the town of Iringa. We are into our second week here, and Laura is already making very good progress, picking up the fundamental parts of Swahili grammar and learning quite a bit of vocabulary that will enable her to speak and listen to people. Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Animals, Iringa, Language, Swahili, Tanzania
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A Day in the Village

February 6, 2012 in Africa, Front, Life, Mark, Tanzania

One of the highlights for us of our 3-week orientation course was the trip last week to a village near the historic town of Bagamoyo. We spent a few hours with the people of the village, enjoying their hospitality and getting to know a little bit about their way of life.

As well as being served a delicious meal, we also got to see some of the crops and fruits that they grow in their fields, even picking, roasting and shelling some cashew nuts – quite a process, which explains why cashews are generally so expensive! Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Farming, Food, Tanzania, Village
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Orientation and preparing for the next stage…

January 30, 2012 in Front, Life, Mark, Tanzania, Wycliffe

After a couple of weeks in Dar es Salaam we’re now coming towards the end of our 3-week orientation course, and looking ahead to the next stage!

We have definitely learnt a lot in the last couple of weeks, about life in Tanzania in general and about Bible translation and language development here in particular. At the same time we’ve been trying to prepare ourselves for the long trip out west to our new home – Mpanda – at the beginning of March. This has meant buying various things for our house including some kitchen equipment, making sure the car that we’re borrowing is in good condition for the trip, obtaining Tanzanian drivers licenses, and meeting with various people to discuss the work we’ll be doing in Mpanda. Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Dar es Salaam, Orientation, Tanzania
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Tumefika! We have arrived in Tanzania…

January 23, 2012 in Africa, Front, Life, Mark, Tanzania, Wycliffe

After five years of anticipation and preparation, on the morning of January 13th we finally touched down at Dar es Salaam International Airport to begin the next stage of our work supporting Bible translation. We are happy to have safely arrived in Tanzania where we are working with SIL International, an organisation devoted to serving minority language communities as they write down their languages and translate the Bible and other materials. Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Dar es Salaam, Language learning, Orientation, SIL, SIL International, Swahili, Tanzania
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England

January 10, 2012 in Front, Laura, Life

The last week has been a whirlwind visit to Mark’s family and our supporters in our other home country, England. New Year’s day we flew into London Heathrow airport very early in the morning and were met by Mark’s happy, sleepy parents. It had been a year and a bit since I’d seen them and about 7 months for Mark, so it was a very happy reunion!

The next few days were sleepy ones with few events planned except a dentist check up. On Wednesday evening we were able to attend a prayer group for Mark’s home village Semington where we shared a bit about what we’ll be doing in a few days time. It was a very encouraging time as we caught up with supporters, including our friend Sarah who has been working in the United Arab Emirates and has very interesting stories about life in Abu Dhabi. Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: England, Family, Visit
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