Three full days us traveling got us all from Portland to JFK to Johannesburg to Dar es Salaam and finally to Morogoro where we had our first chance to rest and take in the beauty of Africa. We learned a lot in Morogoro, and most of that came from our leaders, but on our last day, they paired us up and sent us off into the city to explore. It was a whole new experience and at times could be a little stressful. We had gone over basic Swahili phrases, so we knew just enough to get by. We had a Scavenger hunt list to work off of, but completing the tasks was very difficult and stressful at times. It was also very exciting and forced us to see the city in a new way. Even though by the end of the day I felt much more comfortable getting around and talking to people, I still felt like I needed a lot more preparation before I would feel comfortable navigating a city and communicating with locals. Thankfully after Morogoro, we took a bus over to the River Valley campsite where we would have five days of intensive language study before heading into the city of Iringa.
The bus station in Morogoro was full of people, buses, stands and excitement. We found the little hut where Gwen had bought our tickets and waited for the bus in there. We talked to the woman who was there in our broken Swahili, and other Tanzanians would stop by to say hello. Talking to people was still hard, but we soon found out that communicating through music and pictures was a lot easier. Liam brought his ukelele and played us some songs while Jack sang, and other people joined in. Everyone loved it, even though they couldn’t understand the words. They also all loved when we pulled out pictures we had brought from home to share with everyone.
Hopefully our Swahili lessons from River Valley will make communicating easier in the future.
Lots of Love,
-Liv and Liam