Mambo, marafiki zangu! Habari za asubuhi? Habari za familia? Habari za Kiswahili? The choir of greetings that I hear on my walks to class or to the market has defined my time here in Tanzania, and I do not know if I am ready to return to silent strolls through Pittsburgh without yelling back, “Nzuri, na wewe je?”
Greetings are a funny concept in the world of language learning because you can really learn a lot about a region’s culture by the way that they say hello and goodbye. To stick with the “Amazing Race” theme, my favorite challenge of all time (Season 21, Episode 12, look it up) required teams to recall the words for “hello” and “goodbye” from every country that they had previously visited over the course of the race. The challenge took teams over two hours to complete, and it cemented two very important things in the mind of middle school Chris. One, that I would never fail so monumentally in a language-related challenge when I inevitably run the race one day (producers, hit my line). And two, that you can never truly know a place until you know how to greet the people.
On the first day of Swahili class before we left for Tanzania, we learned a few different greetings that may come up when meeting someone for the first time. I thought our professors brief introduction would be the extent (how many different ways can you say hello after all??) but I was very mistaken. Upon arriving in Tanzania, I was informed that the smattering of greetings that we learned in our orientation was approximately 10% of what we might hear in an everyday conversation, and in order to be a competent beginner, we needed to learn the other 90%. When people find out that you are learning Swahili, they often pull out as many different greetings as they can think of (sometimes even the ones that you reserve only for those of the highest respect) just to see how well you have been studying. Culturally relevant is an understatement; learning how to greet someone is fundamental.
In Swahili, one of the most common greetings follows the structure that I used in the beginning of this blog: habari za ____? The question in English means “how is _______? (“the morning”, “family”, and “Swahili” were the topics that I chose to ask all of you about). Literally, however, the greeting translates to “What’s the news about ____?” Regardless of what the news actually is, you only really have two options for your response: nzuri (good) or nzuri sana (very good). In some ways, this mimics the greeting structure of American English where we ask how someone is doing without actually anticipating a meaningful response, but for some reason this feels more personal. Perhaps it is the targeted “news” that people ask about or everyone’s willingness to stop their lives and talk to a stranger, but the interactions feels far more genuine.
Recently, my group went on safari to the Ngorongoro Crater and Tarangire National Park, and the culture that I observed surrounding greetings was vastly different from that which I had experienced in Usa River at MS TCDC. Instead of the standard, “hujambo,” we just heard “jambo,” the expression we are taught in the US to mean “hello” in Swahili. Instead of “hamnashida” (no problem), we heard “hakuna matata.” The abrupt change in the greetings of the tourism sector showed me how differently locals and visitors can be treated here, and the Tanzania that many tourists see is not a reflection of the everyday life of an average citizen. I went from buying avocados and barbecue goat from a roadside market with my host father so that we could cook dinner as a family to being served a glass of watermelon juice in the lobby of a safari lodge. The change was welcome at first, but it felt artificial. We would try to practice our Swahili with the hotel staff only to be met with a polite smile and a response in English. This was not only frustrating for me as a learner, but it also illuminated some of the toxic attitudes towards language prestige in Tanzania. Some of the native-Swahili speakers in our group were visibly treated with less urgency than those of us who were American. Whether that meant getting served more slowly at dinner or being given smaller rooms at check-in, the differences were silent but spoke volumes. Sure, welcoming visitors is a large part of the culture here, but that does not mean that locals (who are often paying the exact same amount as foreigners) should be treated with any less respect.
The safari weekend forced me to reflect on my role as a visitor and as a tourist. As study abroad students, we often think that we are exempt from any negative attitudes towards tourism because we studying. While this is true in some regards, the general population does not know that I am not here for tourism, and as such, they will still inevitably treat me like a tourist. Americans often think of the world as their playground, and this attitude is only exacerbated by the fact that our passport is extremely powerful. To enter Tanzania, I was able to get a visa-on-arrival and cross the border within a matter of hours. In the opposite scenario, a Tanzanian would have to wait months to be granted access into the US, only after applying for expensive visas, having an interview at the embassy, and hoping that their application is approved before the date of their flight. The process is extremely complicated, unfair, and it is a concrete representation of the inequalities in the travel industry. The least we can do as tourists is to support ethically owned and operated companies and to ensure that our money is going into the pockets of the locals instead of foreign investors. Oh, and learn how to say hello and goodbye before you travel somewhere new.