Tulirudi kuendelea kujifunza jinsi ya kuzungumza Kiswahili vizuri (we have returned to continue to learn how to speak Swahili well!)

We are settling back into life at Riverside Campsite. Life goes on as it did before we left – it feels like living in a bubble sometimes as we have relatively limited contact with the outside world. We come up for air one or two times a week when we go into town for church, the internet and cultural sessions. The rest of the time it’s sometimes easy to forget where you are… then something hits you that’s just sooo different from home. Hmmm, it’s a fun but strange existence!

Matt and I spent last week in a class on our own as we are now at a different level to the other students due to our trip to Mbeya. It was a novel experience for us and we quite enjoyed it(!)…which bodes well! We tend to help each other out with Swahili – Matt supplying me with grammar and me supplying him with vocabulary when needed (a whole new level to finishing each others sentences!). As most people will know our brains work differently! In some ways it does make learning a language so much easier when you have two brains instead of one!

This week is all change with the classes having to be mixed up a little. The Swahili teachers, when traveling back to Iringa after classes on Monday, had a car accident. The car rolled several times but amazingly no-one was seriously hurt. A couple of teachers are now recovering with a broken arm, cuts, bruises and a few stitches. Please continue to pray for safe travel for them and all those we know – it really is such a risky business here.

One other change is that we are now living in a banda rather than a tented banda. For those who are still unsure of the difference… a banda is like a little wooden cabin with a thatched roof rather than a tent under a thatched roof! It’s nice now to be in a proper room with more space and a bathroom next door – what luxury! We share our banda (it has two double rooms) with our friends Rachel and Jonathan Morgan and we have had lots of laughs together so far. The other night Matt and I heard some little feet scampering above in the roof (not our friends!). A kind campsite worker came to set a trap the next day. We have yet to find the outcome but there has definitely been less scampering…!