Author: Matt Christensen

This past weekend was full of rest, history, exploration, and much picture taking!  We travelled via dala-dala up to Bagamoyo, about two hours up the coast from Dar.  It is a famously historic town in East Africa because it was a hub for the slave trade.  Traders would bring their captured slaves here before Indians…

Yesterday we had another Kiswahili test (every Friday) and it was by far the toughest one yet!  Oh well.  I’m not really worried about any of my classes… I’ll be alright.  Nothing else really happened yesterday that is of note.  I went to Mlimani City to exchange another 150$ for shillings with Jake and Bob,…

So yesterday, during Kiswahili class, I performed a song (in Kiswahili) for everybody!  Our teacher, Daktari Mtembo, commissioned me last week to write a melody for the song written on page 78 of our Kiswahili course book.  It was really well received!  He took a video of it and said he was going to put…

This last weekend was pretty great, full of hard work and interesting times.  On Friday we went to eat as a whole group at an Ethiopian restaurant.  We sat, four around a small circular table, as they brought out huge circular dishes with our meals on them.  Lining the bottom of the dish was a…

Right now I am sitting on the balcony of my 6th floor dorm room, looking out at the Indian Ocean in the distance.  Dar es Salaam is spread out before me, with its fish markets and street vendors near the coast.  I am eating some chocolate cookies with creamed centers.  They are called “Crembia: Chocolate…

I have not been writing very much lately because I have been feeling kind of homesick as well as extremely busy.  Four hours of Kiswahili class every morning plus tons of work on research methods!  It’s been busy.  Starting next week it will get even busier, though, since we are adding two more classes on…