jambo, jambo bwana

Almost twenty years ago I worked in Las Vegas as an event host and celebrity coordinator. Once the main event had wrapped up, my partner and I found ourselves at various after parties, bouncing between clubs with a few of the attendees we were hosting, at an hour way past my conservative bed time.

I would make it a point to stick around just long enough to show face at the late night events and quickly slither out the back at first chance to catch some sleep. One evening, though not "late" on a Vegas watch, I feared my carriage had already surrendered to its original pumpkin flesh, and decided to catch a cab back to my hotel alone. A gentleman pulled his yellow car around and, after informing him of my destination, I sat down and suffered about ten minutes of an  incredibly uncomfortable silence.

It was then I noticed a Kenyan flag hanging from the rear view mirror of this cab. Now, it had been twenty years since I had been to East Africa, but I will never forget the Kenyan national song I learned back then. And so, with the courage of a Vegas late-nighter racing through my veins, I started singing quietly from the back seat of the taxi.

Ben, who taught me the song

Hold your applause. It was hardly a performance to be boasting about... until I noticed it.

A flash of white shone from beyond the deep olive of the man's skin. In only a moment, the stoic face of this driver yielded to an infectious smile that started somewhere in his eyes, spread across both cheeks, eventually dividing his lips.

At the next red light he turned to face me for the first time and proceeded to ask where I had learned that song. He was astonished. After all, who was this little caucasian twenty-something woman seated behind him in a black satin gown, singing in Swahili at 2am!? What could have been the most awkward fifteen minutes in the world, turned into an amazing connection of two perfect strangers.

I cannot express my deep appreciation for language, for its inherent differences and for its commonalities which connect us all at one basic human level. 

And so, outside of utilizing my natural talents of language acquisition in some mysterious James Bond-esque lifestyle, I chose to study the intricacies of my native tongue, and to learn the proper way to share it's erratic behavior and oxymoronic tendencies with eager students up for the challenge. My teaching career spanned over fifteen years, and I was lucky to learn more about language and culture from my students than they were ever to learn from me.