We'll be on Safari

So for the next 4-5 days, we will “be on safari.” Not on a safari, but on safari. A safari classifies a journey; safari alone means a trip to Nairobi, Masai Mara, Nakuru, etc. etc. And that’s what our safari will encompass as long as the car we are taking makes it there.

You can’t avoid picking up their way of saying things here. We don’t say that we go to a university in the states, we go to university. And people haven’t really heard of internships here. We are on ‘attachment.’ I thought that when we came here ‘Jambo’ meant Hello, which it does, but it also can be assumed as ‘What’s up?’ So you say Jambo, they say Mzuri (Fine). The first couple of weeks here it frustrated me that people would say ‘fine, fine thank you’ to ‘Hello.’ It felt like they assumed what you were going to say, before you said it, and instead of waiting for you to say ‘How are You?’ they beat you to it. And for that matter, when people say Fine back home I always think they are not really fine but a little bugged about you asking them that question. Here ‘Fine’ must be the standard answer everyone is taught in school.

I guess that was a lot more than I needed to say to say that we’ll be on safari.

While we’re gone please continue to read Andrew’s blog as much as you humanly possibly can handle it. Tell your friends to just open it. It makes his day a little brighter to see his page views go up on Google Analytics.