Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Jambo!
Warning: here follows a long overdue rant.
If you ask a random American for a single word of Swahili, their most likely response will be "Jambo!". There's even a children's picture book with the line, "Jambo means hello."
Just one problem.
Jambo does NOT mean hello. You will never hear a Tanzanian saying "jambo" to another Tanzanian. Yes, you will hear jambo,and you'll hear it a lot if you walk the streets of Moshi, Arusha, or Dar. But it doesn't simply mean "hello". It means, hi, you're a tourist. Or hi, tourist, can I sell you something? Or, hello, foreigner-who-doesn't-know-Swahili, taxi? Or possibly just, hello, foreigner.
I admit, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with being greeted "jambo." Sometimes people are just trying to be friendly, and maybe they've heard that white people only understand the greeting "jambo." But. If you've been in Tanzania six months, live in a village, know your way around, and are possibly too proud of your integration and Kiswahili skills for your own good, "jambo" gets very annoying very fast. It feels like after six months in Tanzania, we should be recognized as something other than a tourist. And in our villages, we are. But as soon as we travel to Dar or Arusha or Moshi, it's back to "Jambo! Taxi?"
How do we deal with this? Sometimes we pull out streams of fluent Swahili: "Hatujambo, mambo vipi, habari za leo?" Other times we go for the tribal greetings. If someone says "Jambo!" in my banking town, I respond "Saitaa?", and am usually rewarded with a grin and a handshake. My favorite response is what two of my friends say to "Jambo, mzungu!": "Mimi siyo mzungu, mimi ni Myao."--I'm not an Mzungu, I'm from the Yao tribe. They then respond with the greetings of the tribe they live with.
As with many of the hassles of living here, there are two ways to choose to respond. You can get annoyed, give the person a dirty look, and respond angrily "Sijambo" (emphasizing the "Si" to show that you know Kiswahili). Or you can smile, hold out your hand, and say "Mambo vipi, saitaa?" Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But there will always be a few people who grin back and shake your hand, even in the hassle-filled streets of Moshi and Arusha. It's more rewarding than grumbling a "sijambo" and moving on. Which I suppose brings me to the end of my rant on a cheerful note, with one of the things I've learned from the Peace Corps so far: given the choice between silent annoyance and humor, humor usually works best.
If you ask a random American for a single word of Swahili, their most likely response will be "Jambo!". There's even a children's picture book with the line, "Jambo means hello."
Just one problem.
Jambo does NOT mean hello. You will never hear a Tanzanian saying "jambo" to another Tanzanian. Yes, you will hear jambo,and you'll hear it a lot if you walk the streets of Moshi, Arusha, or Dar. But it doesn't simply mean "hello". It means, hi, you're a tourist. Or hi, tourist, can I sell you something? Or, hello, foreigner-who-doesn't-know-Swahili, taxi? Or possibly just, hello, foreigner.
I admit, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with being greeted "jambo." Sometimes people are just trying to be friendly, and maybe they've heard that white people only understand the greeting "jambo." But. If you've been in Tanzania six months, live in a village, know your way around, and are possibly too proud of your integration and Kiswahili skills for your own good, "jambo" gets very annoying very fast. It feels like after six months in Tanzania, we should be recognized as something other than a tourist. And in our villages, we are. But as soon as we travel to Dar or Arusha or Moshi, it's back to "Jambo! Taxi?"
How do we deal with this? Sometimes we pull out streams of fluent Swahili: "Hatujambo, mambo vipi, habari za leo?" Other times we go for the tribal greetings. If someone says "Jambo!" in my banking town, I respond "Saitaa?", and am usually rewarded with a grin and a handshake. My favorite response is what two of my friends say to "Jambo, mzungu!": "Mimi siyo mzungu, mimi ni Myao."--I'm not an Mzungu, I'm from the Yao tribe. They then respond with the greetings of the tribe they live with.
As with many of the hassles of living here, there are two ways to choose to respond. You can get annoyed, give the person a dirty look, and respond angrily "Sijambo" (emphasizing the "Si" to show that you know Kiswahili). Or you can smile, hold out your hand, and say "Mambo vipi, saitaa?" Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But there will always be a few people who grin back and shake your hand, even in the hassle-filled streets of Moshi and Arusha. It's more rewarding than grumbling a "sijambo" and moving on. Which I suppose brings me to the end of my rant on a cheerful note, with one of the things I've learned from the Peace Corps so far: given the choice between silent annoyance and humor, humor usually works best.
# posted by Kristen @ 6:43 AM 
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]