Get Thee to a Nunnery

We are staying at Amabalis Centre in Morogoro about four hours from Dar es Salaam by bus. We have been here for a few days and will be here until Sunday which will make the experience a week in total. The centre is a quiet and peaceful convent operated by a small group of nuns. They do the job of looking after most of our bodily needs while our teachers, Benji, Asia and Pepi look after our educational needs with intensive Swahili lessons. These lessons will help us to form relationships with the Tanzanians that we meet during our placement in Kibaya. That's the plan anyway.

This morning I took a shirt down to the convent laundry to be washed I gave my room number in Swahili and hope that my pronunciation doesn't sound anything like, 'rip up this shirt and use it as a nest for rats.' So far the clean and freshly ironed shirt has not made an appearance.

Ironing is very important in these parts. Not as an office fashion statement but because the heat of the iron kills the insects which nest in the drying clothes and which later tunnel into one's skin causing great discomfort but probably not immediate death.

The grub is pretty good here at the convent. Breakfast is white bread and fruit jam, instant coffee and if we're lucky an egg. There is usually a slice of watermelon or a banana as well. For our morning break the nuns prepare such delicacies as fried bananas and weiners. It is an unusual combination, I will admit, but one which works quite well. Lunch usually consists of potatoes, chicken or beef and spinach. Supper is basically the same.

The meals are heavy on the starch. Normally there are potatoes and rice with every meal save breakfast and break. By break time my head is usually spinning from trying to concentrate on Swahili verbs and so anything in the way of food comes as a very welcome treat. I am avoiding the bottle of hot sauce on the table for reasons that I will leave to your imagination.

There are fifteen CUSO-VSO Swahili students at the convent. We are divided into three classes of five each. Debbie and I are in the Kwanza class, which means first. Believe me when I say that the name of our class has nothing to do with our abilities in Swahili which, in my case, is not even approaching survival level.

Benji, Asia and Pepi are lively and patient. Trying to drum swahili into my head is not an easy task. I lived in Quebec for about forty years and managed to avoid learning much French so it's a real stretch of even the most fertile imagination to think that my Swahili will ever match that of Shabaan Robert, Tanzania's national poet.