|
afreakforjc
|
read my profile
sign my guestbook
Name: anDrew
Gender: Male
Interests: Currently I'm interested in not becoming jaded, embittered and generally dissatisfied with my life as an surgical resident. Many times I fail. Once in awhile, I appear marginally compassionate. Oh, the heights I've fallen.
Expertise: Discharge summaries, electrolyte replacement.
Occupation: Scut-recipient
Industry: Medical
Message: message me
AIM:  jcfreakout
Member Since:
7/16/2006
|
|
SubscriptionsSites I Read
|
|
|
|
| I continue my quest for Kiswahili fluency. Occasionally a Kenyan (usually someone I don't know that well) will say, "Ah wow! Unaelewa Kiswahili mzuri. Unajifunza vizuri." You understand Kiswahili very well. You are learning well.
Other times, however, a Kenyan (usually a closer friend) will say, "What? You don't understand what I am saying in Kiswahili? Why aren't you learning more? Kiswahili is so easy to learn!"
That's easy for them to say -- people who have grown up learning their tribal tongue at home, Kiswahili in the marketplace, and English in school. By the time they're ten years old, they're often trilingual. However, technically, they are correct. Kiswahili is, linguistically speaking, not considered a very hard language to learn -- certainly nothing like Mandarin, Russian, or Arabic. It's probably why Kiswahili, originally a tribal language from the East African coast, became so dominant in the entire region, understand by 80 million people in places as far away as Congo-Kinshasa, Burundi, Madagascar, even Yemen.
Kiswahili is in the Bantu language group. Bantu languages share a common characteristic -- the idea of "noun classes." Every noun belongs to a certain class. (I'm currently studying the fourteen most common classes, although in total I think there are around seventeen.) The noun class determines verb conjugation, plurality, demonstratives, and a whole host of other grammatical thingamabobs.
Most recently I asked my Kiswahili teacher, King'ori, how to say this, that, these, and those.
"You know. Like, how do I say that child or these children?"
I figured there would be a rough but direct translation for these simple English words. King'ori had me draw a chart on a piece of paper. It was another matrix; but this matrix had five columns and twenty-four rows. There were 120 boxes to fill in.
"Sawa," he replied. "Let's start with the A-Wa class." (For those of you who know Kiswhaili, this is new classification for the previously dubbed "M-Wa" class.)
I should have known it wouldn't be so simple. For every noun class, there's a different way to say (what I thought were) these few simple words. When I was done filling out the matrix, I looked at my handiwork.
There were 13 different ways to say "this;" another 13 to say "these;" 26 ways to say "that;" and 26 for "those."
"You gotta be kidding me. So to translate four simple English words, I have to pick from a list of 78 Kiswahili words?"
King'ori nodded unapologetically.
| | |
| I went to a local duka the other day to buy some minutes for my prepaid cell phone and Internet. I own a Safaricom-based cell phone and wireless Internet modem, which allows me surf in the Internet through the cell phone towers. (Hence, my Internet speed in Kapsowar is like dial-up, about 20-50 kbps). It's all prepaid, so I buy a certain number of minutes and megabytes and then refill my cell phone for more time to talk or my Internet modem for more data to download.
It's easy to buy Safaricom top-up cards in increments of 10, 50, or 100 shillings (15 cents, 70 cents, or $1.30, respectively). This is what most of the townspeople buy. There's only one duka in town that sells Safaricom top-up cards of 500 or 1000 shillings ($6.70, $13.40), and they close usually before I'm done with work. Therefore, I usually only buy my top-up cards one in a great while, and then I'll buy a few thousand shillings worth of minutes and/or megabytes.
When I walked into the duka, I saw Peter there -- a tall, imposing figure who works as a groundskeeper for the hospital. His Kenyan-style house is on the hospital station, just a couple hundred yards away from my Western-style house. I greeted him, and then tried to, as discreetly as possible, request 3,500 shillings ($47) worth of Safaricom top-up cards.
I could feel Peter's eyes piercing the back of my skull as the lady behind the counter gave me three 1000 shilling top-up cards and a 500 shilling card. I felt hot under my shirt as I slipped her the money, asked for a receipt, and then nodded to Peter as I quickly exited.
Maybe I should have bought those cards when no one else who knew me was at the duka, I thought to myself. I just flaunted -- well, I didn't exactly flaunt, but I just handed over -- 3,500 shillings in cash. That was about as much as Peter made in an entire month at the hospital.
I suppose if I were in his situation, I would have a hard time not staring either. If someone in the States walked into a 7-Eleven and paid the cashier $3000 (my approximate monthly salary as a resident) to buy an infinite number of Slurpees -- yeah, that would be something to stare at.
Somehow I felt bad for carrying around that much cash, even though the act of buying minutes and megabytes itself wasn't bad, but necessary. I'm used to not worrying about how many minutes I use on my cell phone -- this requires buying a steady supply of top-up cards. However, most Kenyans in Kapsowar usually run out of time on their pre-paid cell phones, and many times they haven't the money to recharge it. The very fact that I don't run out of minutes on my cell phone puts me in the top 1% of richest people in the district -- a fact I was uncomfortably reminded of when Peter became very silent as I bought my top-up cards.
| | |
| We recently celebrated Christina's birthday with a grand birthday party. Her present from Michal was something unpronounceable, a traditional Kenyan clothing piece.
For my part, I was conscripted by Michal to cook some food for the large birthday dinner. However, it has become a truism that anDrew, a bachelor, does not cook for himself -- or at all, for that matter. This is well accepted and self-evident amongst the Kapsowar station members, and all very well know Ednah saves me from starvation. (In fact, Kapsowar is not the first mission hospital to discover my inability to cook for myself.)
Nevertheless, with Michal's prompting, I took an afternoon off work to create some, ahem, food-ish stuff -- which all has to be made from scratch. Actually, I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome, if not the sweat labor required to make such stuff.
These were the tortilla chips -- kneaded, rolled, grilled, and baked to a crispy perfection.
This was the guacamole, make from the freshest and mushiest avocados around.
And this was the triple layer chocolate-banana cake with chocolate frosting.
It was not originally designed to be a triple layer cake, but Michal had me add so many cups of milk and flour (that, incidentally, were not called for in the recipe) that we had to bake the batter in three pans. Thus, we put the cakes on top of each other, making it look something like a square tank with an oversized turret. | | |
| Relish excites me. It's fairly easy to get hot dogs and hot dog buns in Eldoret. It's even possible to get (rather fluorescent-colored Kenyan imitations of) ketchup and mustard. But a real American hot dog isn't quite the same without some sweet relish. Relish is hard to obtain. It either has to come smuggled in a suitcase from America, or you have to be lucky enough to find it in Nairobi, where the supply is haphazard. But...mmm...relish on a hot dog...yummy....
Toilet paper excites me. Specifically, toilet paper in bulk excites me. A roll of toilet paper costs 25 shillings ($0.33). Usually you have to buy single rolls in one of the small shops in Kapsowar centre. However, the other day I found a bulk package of toilet paper with eight rolls inside. Eight! Eight rolls of toilet paper for 190 shillings! It's a far cry from the 48-roll package I used to buy from Walmart, but hopefully now I won't realize I ran out of single rolls of toilet paper whilst sitting on the throne. (Toilet paper rolls aren't very thick here, so I go through them fast.)
The view from the hospital excites me. I keep saying that -- though patients might stay in the hospital for months -- they have one of the best views in the house. Almost all of them go outside if it's sunny to enjoy the warmth while the nurses sweep the ward floor and make the beds. The view from the male wards is especially stunning.
Children and parents basking in the sun outside Children's Ward
The way to Ward 6, Male Surgical
The view from Ward 6, with the hospital laundry drying in the sun
| | |
| As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. "Good teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" "Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.'" "Teacher," he declared, "all these I have kept since I was a boy." Jesus looked at him and loved him. "One thing you lack," he said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." At this the man's face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth. ------------
One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer—at three in the afternoon. Now a man crippled from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts. When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money. Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, "Look at us!" So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them. Then Peter said, "Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk." Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man's feet and ankles became strong. He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God. | | |
|
