We're two weeks into an eight-week immersion program that is roughly equivalent to two semesters of language classes at a typical university. It's hard. Like, really hard. There has been more than one night this week when I laid awake, listening to the rolling rumble of monkeys running across the metal roof, and wondering why I was here. Why couldn't I just work in a Spanish-speaking country? Why did I have to pick a language with eight distinct noun classes, each apparently having unique subject prefixes, conjugation rules, demonstratives, and more? Why did I have to pick a language where there are three types of verbs and three different ways to say "wash," and they're not interchangeable?
Swapping one letter in a Swahili word can completely alter its meaning. This week, I proudly announced to my class that my host mom makes my morning porridge from ground Colobus monkey (mbega). I meant ground seeds (mbegu). Similarly, to understand something (elewa) and to be drunk (lewa), or "again" (tena) and to spit (tema), are a slip of the tongue apart. These near-pairings are numerous, and cause my class great frustration.
And then you come across words like shaghalabaghala (mess), televisheni (television), or soksi (socks), and you have to smile. Swahili is a language that has borrowed liberally from other languages shared by traders and explorers at this historic crossroads of Eastern Africa. But that doesn't mean English speakers learning Swahili get off easy; the tendency to absorb useful words is why there is an entire class of Arabic verbs to learn the rules of.
Pictures of me sitting in a classroom burning brain cells are obviously uninteresting. Instead, enjoy some scenes from my hikes around Usa River.
I came into the program after spending more than a year on Duolingo and working in Tanzania for a month in 2025. I possessed what I felt was a pretty decent foundation in elementary Swahili. That notion has perished. Obliterated. Wiped from the face of the earth. I now realize I knew practically nothing about the language parts or how to take them apart or put them back together in different ways.
Over the past two weeks, my vocabulary has easily tripled. I’ve learned two noun classes, dozens of transition words, and I’m drowning in new verbs. As demonstrated above, many of these words are mind-numbingly similar, and every conversation is a scramble to pull together the appropriate vocabulary. It’s like a small child dumped out their entire bucket of Legos in my brain and I have to build things that are recognizable within a matter of seconds. Inevitably, there are failures.
As I jogged past two security guards on my evening run the other day, I warmly wished them a good morning. When a young man I ran into on a walk jokingly professed ardent love and said he wanted to take me home to meet his mama, I pleasantly replied that I was doing well. We are encouraged to remember that every failure is a lesson learned, and the lessons that sting the most generally stick. If there is any justice in this world, I really hope that means I’m headed for a learning breakthrough. Lakini kwa sasa, ninahitaji kusoma sana (But for now, I need to study a lot).
To join me on this journey, you can follow along with new posts in the Field Notes blog on this website or LinkedIn. I am in Tanzania on a Critical Language Scholarship for Summer 2026. My research is currently supported by the Center for Human-Carnivore Coexistence, a P.E.O. Scholar Award, and a Center for Collaborative Conservation Fellowship. I am actively fundraising for the next phase of my research, and welcome referrals to funders who are interested in supporting work on global challenges including human-wildlife conflict, poverty alleviation, biodiversity conservation, and the impacts of a changing climate on all of these issues.