Bongo Camping Hot Water System 2011

Bongo Camping´s new hot water system will soon be available for visitors. Right at this moment we are building a local construction for effectively heating up bathing water. This new service will propably be suiting many guests who camp up in our Southern Highlands, where temperatures may drop to around 10 degrees during nights. The traveller quoted below stayed at Bongo Camping for three days in July 2011, at a time when we were still only dreaming about a hot water system:

"I got straight a cold coming from the warm Malawian lakeshore to the southern highlands of Tanzania. I stayed three days in Tukuyu at Bongo Camping.
The campsite has been sponsored by a Danish organization. I was the only guest and even if I had bucket shower and the light was coming and going and everything was a bit dodgy I stayed there and enjoyed my time. The two guys running the camping, William and Ebrahim really appreciate to have a guest, cooked not bad and William made his best to show me around.

I wanted to kill him the second day when we went for a supposed little bicycle tour that turned out in an 8 hours tour up and down the hills

At Malasusa Falls

Anyway, my cold was gone the next day, sometimes it helps to do some exercise and sweat to get healthy again.

I have never seen so many bananas in my life and also in the restaurants there were bananas in all dishes, cooked, fried, spiced.

I really laughed the first day when Ebrahim brought me my supper and I said to him "cool bananas" like we use to say in south Africa and he told me “sorry but we haven't got bananas tonight”. And I tried to explain him that it is just a way of saying “good job”.. and the next day I ordered the same meal and there were two little bananas on the plate..

The third morning it was a Monday and when I woke up I found out that they were using the building of the camping site as a primary school and I had lots of curious kids staring at me while I was packing my stuff to leave."

This travel notice has been written in a travel-blog on www.travelpod.co.uk:

http://www.travelpod.co.uk/travel-blog-entries/leoinafrica/1/1310470102/tpod.html#_#ixzz1VZSxXynb

We bet our visitor was longing for hot water as we were dreaming about providing this undeniably famous service. Now the hot water system will finally be heating up the chilly mornings at Bongo Camping. So pop in for a hot shower! The photo of August 2011 shows the brick construction at Bongo Camping which lays the foundation of the local system to heat up bathing water.

New pictures and video from Bongo Camping

We welcome everybody at Bongo Camping!  Karibu!

Pictures and some quotes about Bongo Camping (including Lonely Planet book description)

Kisamakibo - Rap Shake Dance (dance version) - video with pictures from Bongo Camping 2006-2009:

Guest photos from Bongo Camping

Photos: Bongo Camping - July 2008

See some photos from Bongo Camping, July 2008.

Learn Swahili - Part Five: Around the table

Course Part Five (KI-VI NOUN CLASS)
PRACTICE SWAHILI AROUND THE TABLE

Grammatical themes:

THE KI-VI NOUN CLASS:

In sentences with Ki-Vi nouns the often used sound-unit in singular is -ki- (i as the ea-sound in ´eagle´), and in plural -vi- (i as the ea-sound in ´eagle´).

Examples: Thing = Kitu
Things = Vitu
A good thing =
Kitu ki-zuri
(thing good)
Good things =
Vitu vi-zuri
(things good)


NARRATIVE TENSE and FAMILY MEMBERS

The narrative tense article is -ka- Example: Then they started to fight
(wao wa-ka-anza kupigana)
(they they-then-start to-fight)
The ka-tense is used a lot in everyday language when people are giving shorter or longer descriptions of events happening in time. It can be used to represent narrative time in both present and future tense.

Mother = Mama

Father = Baba

Big brother = Kaka

Big sister = Dada

Smaller sibling = Mdogo (”little”)

Grandfather = Babu

Grandmother = Bibi

Wife = Mke

Husband = Mume


Course Part Five, exercises

After practicing on the above mentioned grammatical features, make short dialogues with the sentences while repeating them:

This chair is for my grandmother = Kiti hiki ni kwa ajili ya bibi yangu
(chair this is for sake of grandmother my)

They sat down in the chairs and then fell asleep = Wao waliketi kwenye viti wa-ka-lala
(they they did sit down in the chairs
they-then-sleep)

I would like the big knife = Mimi naomba kisu ki-kubwa
(I I-like knife big)


The knives fell down and she started to cry = Visu vi-li-anguka chini a-ka-lia
(knives they-fell down she-then-cry)

Where are the matchboxes? Je, vibiriti vi-ko wapi?
(je = sound used before asking a question,
matchboxes they-are where?)

We will find the matchbox and light the candle = Tu-ta-ki-tafuta kibiriti tu-ka-washa mshumaa
(we-will-it-find matchbox we-then-light candle)

”I don´t have a spoon”, he said, and left = ”Mimi sina kijiko” alisema a-ka-ondoka
(I I-have-no spoon he-did-say he-then-leave)

We use our spoons to stir the coffee = Sisi tu-na-vi-tumia vijiko vyangu kukoroga kahawa
(we we-are-they-use spoons our to-stir coffee)