language learning

We began formal language learning on Monday, October 10. Our teacher, Elias, normally teaches at a school in Nairobi. He has been teaching kiswahili for 19 years. He came to Narok on Sunday when Kevin met him at the guest house and showed him how to get to our house. This week, our schedule has been me meeting with Elias from 8-10am, breaking for chai from 10 to 10:30am. Kevin meets with Elias from 10:30-12:30pm. We have a lunch break from 12:30-2:00pm. Jackline cooks Kenya lunch for all of us and we eat then have time to put the kids down for naps before starting back up at 2:00pm with Elias. Both Kevin and I meet with Elias from 2-4:00pm while the kids are mostly sleeping. At 4:00pm, we have chai before Elias returns to his guest house for the night. Kevin has been doing school with the kids form 9-10am and then I finish up from 10:30-12.

We have had a couple opportunities to get into town and practice as well. We're looking forward to going to town on Saturday and getting some things taken care of as well as practice what we've learned this week.

After our brownie failure last Friday, the kids and I made snickerdoodles today and are hoping for a better turn out. We seem to be going through flour a lot faster here then we do in the States. I guess that's not surprising though. However, I have found that before making pizza dough for dinner tonight, I'm going to have to make a trip to Naivas for some flour.

This week has been good. It's felt productive and we seem to be closer to knowing Swahili than we were last week. We'll see how much we remember come Monday!