Our commitment to MAF UK is for an initial 11 years ... yes, really ... 11 years (it was a BIG decision)! The first 3 years are here in the States and then a further 8 years in an MAF programme, usually 2 4-year terms. As I wrote in the last post, MAF are in over 30 countries worldwide so our adventure with MAF could take us anywhere, but most likely our next placement will be in East Africa, possibly Uganda or even back in Tanzania where I taught before! We have one year left here in America and while I can understand the bigger picture I've got the responsibility of preparing the girls for this next move which will be a bigger cultural and language jump than when we moved here to America and possibly quite difficult for them to assimilate.
While we were away on holiday the other week, we found the cutest little bookshop 'The Fine Print' which had a wide range of children's books ... some really unique ones. Abigail loves books as much as us, so I picked out a couple that would help her prepare and understand some of the upcoming changes in our family life. Needless to say she has already really enjoyed both of these lots ... but I thought I'd share them with you as useful resources.
The DK one 'A Life Like Mine' is full of photos and examples of what different areas of life is like for a child all over the world ... from the meanings of names, availability of clean water ... to living with disabilities, exposure to war and many many more subjects ... a great conversation starter when talking about living in another culture and showing that just because someone does something differently doesn't make it wrong.
The other book, 'We All Went on Safari', is a great counting book and introduction to Tanzania ... Masai, African animals and 1-10 in Swahili! Having lived in Tanzania before, I still have quite a good understanding of Swahili but it will be all new to both my girls and my husband, so I thought this would be a good, fun starting point to introduce a little Swahili into the house (as it will most likely be spoken in all of the East African countries we will be in next).
Every page shows the number and the Swahili word ... and at the back of the book there is some more information about Tanzania, the Swahili names for all the animals they use and the meanings of the different character names too, as well as a summary of the numbers (all with pronunciation spellings to help if these new words aren't familiar!)
So ... for those of you who might be interested in the basic numbers ...
- moja - mo-jah
- mbili - m-bee-lee
- tatu - ta-too
- nne - n-nay
- tano - tah-no
- sita - see-tah
- saba - sah-bah
- nane - nah-nay
- tisa - tee-sah
- kumi - koo-mee
No comments:
Post a Comment