Steve and Barnabas in Tanzania

Ok this was a blog I was holding off on as long as possible hoping that God would answer my prayers in an overwhelming positive (for me) fashion.  But apparently He really wants me to work to learn this-Kiswahili.  I have spent hours every day working through my grammar books and dictionaries.  I have created flash cards and rewritten words I feel will be important to me to the point I have filled up two notebooks.  This is all after my time with a tutor for several weeks. Let’s start with the history of the language.  Kiswahili is what is referred to as a Bantu language meaning that it was formed by combining several languages into a new language typically for specific types of work or trade.  In this case the Spice trade which ran through Zanzibar during pre-colonialism started the creation of Kiswahili along the coastal region of Tanzania and Kenya and was first influenced heavily by Arabic languages.  During the colonial period, Germany took c...

This one is going to be very different.  Because Blogger will not allow me to post a PDF file, I had to do this kind of weird.  So Barnabas' newsletter is on Facebook in two image files.  I am posting the main article here but if you would like the count in Kiswahili, games and other fun items you will need to follow the link to download the two images.  The answer to the crossword puzzle is also there in image file and I have given a link below. Page 1 of Newsletter Page 2 of Newsletter Answers to Crossword Puzzle A Kid's Life in Tanzania-School Since I spend more of my time with the kids in Tanzania than I do with adults, I thought it would be good to tell you a little about what their life is like.   Let’s start with school.   Pre-Primary is similar to kindergarten and is for children 5-6 years of age and normally lasts 2 years.   However it is normal in rural (outside the city) areas for there to be no pre-primary type school and i...