Last week Rhonda and I began our formal lessons in Kiswahili. Up until now we had just been gleaning words and phrases from the adults and kids here at the children's home. We had our second lesson today and it is clear that these middle-aged brains and tongues of ours are having quite a challenge to get the new vocabulary and sounds correct. (The letters are the same as english, however, pronounciations are different! Our instructor, who is a neighbor down the street, is originally from the eastern coast of Kenya. It is widely accepted that the people from that region speak the "purest Swahili". When we try to pronounce new words sometimes he laughs a little. Others he just says, "no, we'll get back to that..." It's very humbling but we'll get it.
