Life at Langauge School…

January 15, 2008 by Stephen Day.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008 1:30 pm

Habari!  I hope that everyone is doing well.  I am really enjoying my time in Iringa at language school.  I figure that many of you might be curious as to what my days are like.  So, I figure it would makes sense to share what a typical day is like here.  I usually get up at 6:30am and have a wonderful shower (first real ones I have had since leaving Dar on October 7 last year).  Then I have breakfast at 7 am – we are offered oatmeal, eggs cooked to our liking, sausage, bacon, beans, tomatoes, toast, and pancakes.  I have really liked having a full breakfast.  After breakfast classes start at 8 am.  Then, there is a break around 10 to 10:30 am and then classes resume for two and a half hours.  Then at 1 pm there is lunch.  After lunch I usually rest for a while and then review my work in class and do homework.  It is during the afternoon that I have been able to occasionally go into town.  Later, I have dinner at 6:30 pm and then do some more work on Swahili.  I usually get to sleep by around 10:00 pm. 

I am staying at a campground which hosts the language school program.  The campground is not really what it sounds like.  I sleep in a “tent” that is permanently installed on a concrete base which has a thatched roof over it and an electrical outlet.  The tent is large and inside there are two traditional beds, a desk, and a dresser-like piece of furniture.  For bathrooms, there is a building right next to my tent that has toilets and showers.  The temperature is about 15 degrees cooler than in Dodoma and it has rained here most of the days that we have been here.  I am drinking about two or three liters of water a day here, where as I drink between six and eight liters of water in Dodoma.  The heat makes a big difference.

I came to Iringa with three other missionaries.  The three of them are all from New Zealand and work in Dodoma.  One of them is Robyn Applebee who works with me at Msalato.  We travelled here in a Toyota SUV that is owned by the New Zealand Church Missionary Society.  On our way to Iringa we drove through a national wildlife preserve.  There we saw numerous animals – namely elephants, a giraffe, and a bunch of baboons.  It was awesome.  I also was surprised to see how well paved the roads were – a lot smoother than the road from Msalato to Dodoma.

Well, I better get back to studying Swahili.  I will share more of my experiences as soon as I get a chance.

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