Learning Chichewa

Chichewa is a Bantu language. It is the national language of Malawi as well as English. Chichewa means actually the language (chi-) of Chewa. It is also spoken in Zambia, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. In Malawi more than half of the population speaks Chichewa. Other local languages are Yao, Ngoni, and Lomwe. Only people with some education speaks English so when going to the field most of the farmers don't speak English. One of my biggest motivations to learn Chichewa, is to be able to speak with the people I meet in the field. Next time I go there I want to be able to say some simple phrases.

Tomorrow is my fourth lesson. So far I have learnt some greetings, introducing myself and talk about food. Here are some useful words:

Muli bwanji?                            How are you?

Ndili bwino, kaya inu?              I’m fine, and you?

Zikomo                                    Thank you

Tionana                                    See you

And my favourite word so far; Ndasangala, which means I am happy.

This is how my dining room looks like

Some words doesn’t exist in Chichewa so then you use the English word. But sometimes they also turn an English word into a Chichewa like word. For example “juice” is called “juwisi”. They also have numbers in Chichewa but you only use the words for one to five. But mostly you only here people counting in English. Sometimes you also have words that are similar to Spanish. For example “mbatata” which in Spanish is “batatat”, means “potatoes.

The grammar is very different from English but somehow similar to Spanish. You have different subject prefixes for different persons. What can be a sentence in English become only one word in Chichewa. For example “I was eating” would be “Ndimadya”. 

This is what I am struggling with at the moment. But it is very fun because every time I try to say something in Chichewa, people looks so happy. Sometimes they get carried away though they think I know much more than I actually do. 

My neighbourhood

There are two kind of people in my neighbourhood. The ones living here and the ones working here. I have hardly no idea who is living here because you mainly see them driving in or out of their houses.  

The best time of the day is when coming back home around 5 pm and then you have an hour before it gets dark. The colours during this time of the day is just beautiful. Just before the sunset, the light is dark yellow and everything gets very colourful.

Today when walking to the supermarket I had to pinch myself in the arm. I can’t believe that I am living in Africa. In this beautiful country with nice weather the whole year around, with exotic plants that we only keep inside at home, and very friendly people.

Even though I don’t know anyone in my neighbourhood it is impossible to walk through it without greeting people and even have a small chat. When passing someone, they say “hello”, or “how are you”, or “good day”, etc. When walking back home today, there were two young guys walking in front of me. When I was just behind them, one of them turned around and started to talk with me about football, work, where I come from, etc. Five minutes later we went in different directions.

My neighbourhood

By the way, do you know that you can go sledding here? Outside my house is a slope which is very dry because it doesn’t rain now. With some cardboards the boys are sledding down the slope. They have a lot of fun.

The other day when I was out running, a girl saw me in the street. When I was passing her she started to run with me. She talked and ran with me a long way. Then she stopped and said she was tired. I continued but then I also stopped. I looked back at her and when she saw I stopped she started to run up to me again.

Another day when walking back from the supermarket I heard someone singing behind me. It was a young boy who was listening to music in his headphones. When passing me he continued to sing and just stopped to say hi and then he continued running down the hill.