Nafurahi kusafiri Tanzania tena kwa sababu safari yangu itakuwa na nafasi nyingi kusoma Kiswahili. Ni bora nisome yuko Tanzania.
Visa...check. Immunizations...check. Airline tickets...check. Camera, journal, clean socks...doublecheck.

In five days, I will set out on a two month trip around Tanzania and Kenya. I am deeply humbled by the opportunity and anxious to deepen my study of Swahili, the knowledge of which has grown since I first began in Mwalimu Lyabaya's class back in 2003. This will be my second trip to Tanzania, this time north to the world-famous city of Arusha. I also hope to return to Dar es Salaam at the end of July, God willing.
I am not as academically motivated to learn Swahili as I am to speak it and by speaking it to truly develop the listening and comprehension necessary for true fluency. I have so much to look forward to and be thankful for, and I want this blog to reflect not only critical and engaged thought about history, world culture, East Africa, and the Indian Ocean, but also be a celebration of those thoughts, lives and practices I encounter. I am a little new at this blog stuff, so I feel a bit sensitive posting personal stuff, but I will try to make this as honestly personal as I can (without subjecting the two readers who are actually interested to blush-inducing fits of TMI).

More to come...