So my friend from college, Sam Purdy is going to make it out here to visit Nov. 18 to Dec. 3. It should be lots of fun – it’ll be my first chance to do some exploring around the country. Meanwhile, to prepare for his trip I’ve decided to help him learn some Kiswhaili. The Lion King is my primary source for understanding the language.
Simba – Simba is the main character of the story. Simba in Kiswahili means lion.
If you need to say, for instance: “Let’s go now! The lion is coming!” You can say:
Twende sasa! Simba unakuja!
-enda is the root of the verb “go” and kwenda is the infinitive form. To say “we are going”, you say tunakwenda. But to say “we go” you can shorten it to twende.
Kuja is infinitive form of “to come”. If the lion is coming, you say unakuja.
Safari – Safari is a trip or a journey. It is similar to the verb “to travel” which is kusafiri.
To say for instance, “we returned from our journey, but the hippo nearly made us lunch!” you say: Tumerudi safari, lakini kiboko karibu na unatufanya chakula cha mchana!
Kiboko is a hippo and they are very aggressive if you get between them and water. Chakula is food, and Chakula cha mchana is food of the afternoon.
Hakuna Matata- There’s no problem. If memory serves me well there is a song in the Lion King called Hakuna Matata (back me up on this one Cliff).
The phrase is commonly used to calm someone down when there is a big problem. As in “Only the axel of the bus is broken, no problem!” Axel kwa basi imevunjinka tu. Hakuna matata!
Kuna is “to have” and Ha- is a prefix indicating the negative. And matata is a problem. So “it doesn’t have a problem” – hakuna matata.
Rafiki- Rafiki is a wise old friend of Simba in the Lion King. In Kiswhaili rafiki means friend.
Lesson number one while in tourist areas like Lamu: the second someone greets you as “my friend!” or rafiki yangu! you can safely bet that they are trying to somehow con you. For example “My friend, the boat has left, but we can go in my speedboat – only 700 shillings”. Rafiki yangu, mashua imeondoka, lakini tunaweza kwenda kwa speedboat yangu – mia saba shilingi.
Mind you the normal boat from the island town of Lamu to the buses on the mainland is 50 shillings (so 70 cents or ten dollars – your choice).
They almost got me with this one today as I left Lamu. As I walked up to the jetty - right on time too - one of “my friends” asked where I was going and let me know that all the boats had left. There was no way to get to the bus except by his boat. I was surprised to hear that the boats would have all left early so I continued to walk out to the edge of the jetty before even thinking about his offer. Sure enough there was one of the normal boats only a quarter full, still waiting for more passengers. Watch out for those guys…
Ha! Good to see you're continuing to master Kiswahili. Sure helps to keep from being taken in by con artists, eh?
ReplyDeleteSo how's this: "No voltage regulator for your gen-sets? Hakuna matata! It just so happens there's a junk truck in my yard that has one attached. And for you, rafiki yangu, I will sell it for only $50 (about 3,750 shillings, cheap!) I'll even throw in the postage at no extra cost."