Recho. That is how my name is spelt here. A perfect example of how Swahili is pronounced exactly how it is written. So my name is too. One month here, despite long hours spent copying down grammar tables and frustrating noun class agreements, has reinforced exactly how much I love Swahili as a language. So much of it makes total sense. The spelling, the tenses, the pronunciation, its all so practical! If only French was the same…

Its amazing how things just work out sometimes without any planning. I found this place on the internet after posting a question about learning Swahili in a travel forum. I didn’t look into it much further except to send a few emails to organise my course dates and hours. But what luck!

After a week of classes I took a few days off so I could listen in to the conference held here in mid June. It was a great mix of people; representatives from the Norwegian Nurses Organisation, teachers from the Tanga Nurses Training College, religious leaders from here in Tanga and other Tanzanian health professionals among others. The focus was on Millenium Development Goals 4 and 5, maternal health and child mortality. Two days were spent sharing knowledge of community health and ideas for further partnerships and improvement of the current health status.

As a student of health and someone who hopes to work in community health later on the conference was a huge inspiration. I learnt tonnes, met amazing people and was given an insight into how even if people have limited resources, by working together, its amazing what can be achieved.

Meanwhile, my Swahili is coming along. I love the time spent just chatting to people about their daily lives, family, friends, religion, work and dreams. I’m getting very practiced at replying with ‘bado’ (not yet) when people ask where my children are, although they do appear to be pretty concerned at me being the ancient age of 20 and still unmarried.

So many Norwegian have stayed, worked or passed through here that I have almost given up explaining that no, I am not from Norway. No, I do not speak Norwegian and I have no idea of random Norwegian general knowledge. Mind you, while it used to be very difficult to have New Zealand recognised as somewhere different to Switzerland, Swaziland or Netherlands (my kiwi accent maybe?) at least it is much better known thanks to our recent soccer attempts in South Africa. It was the results of this tournament that taught me the saying ‘Pole sana’, an expression used in sympathy. E.g. “I watched the football game last night with NZ and Spain… pole sana.” Ah well...