Potty Talk

Little by little I'm trying to learn a bit of Swahili.  Of course most of the time I learn by making mistakes!

Today we were sitting in the pastor's office and I thought I would impress everyone by saying "we'll go drink tea now."  What I said was "we'll go to the bathroom now."  I'm sure that I don't have to tell you that everyone erupted in laughter about that.  Everyone left the office, and Mama Kweka very solemnly shut the door and informed me of my mistake.

And in an equally embarrassing move - yesterday after we had had tea, we were going to go back to the office and I said, "I'll be there in a minute, I'm just going to the bathroom."  Pastor Shao pulled me aside later and said:  "in your country is it okay to say that you're going to the bathroom?"  Right away I knew that in Tanzania this is not okay.  He advised me to use figurative language to do this.  He said to say something like "i'm going to wash my hands" or "I'm just going down the hall for a moment."  So now I know.  I'm sure that they would be mortified to know that in the Spohr household most people anounce #1 or #2.  I'm just saying.

So now I've mortified the Tanzanians and my mother!

Habari za mchanga  (Good afternoon!)