Life as a Postgrad Scholar

I feel that I have (almost) truly arrived in Zanzibar now that I know how to exchange greetings like a civilized person. “Jambo,” I know now, does not mean “hello,” or at least not in any straightforward way. “Jambo” means, according to my Kiswahili/English dictionary, “1. thing 2. matter 3. affair 4. issue.” Indeed, at my first Kiswahili lesson, my tutor explained that when people use “-jambo” in a greeting in Kiswahili, it is always preceded by the negative form of the appropriate subject prefix. So, one might ask “Hujambo?” (Are you [singular] without troubles), and the correct reply—always, even if it’s not true—is “Sijambo” (“I am without troubles”). Here are some other possibilities:

Hamjambo? (Are you [plural] without troubles?)  Hatujambo. (We are without troubles.)

Watoto wako hawajambo? (Are your children without troubles?)  Hawajambo. (They are without troubles.)

Mume yako hajambo? (Is your husband without troubles?)  Hajambo. (He is without troubles.)

I list all of these possibilities to demonstrate that there is no one-size-fits-all greeting in Kiswahili, to show that there’s a lot of vocabulary to learn to get the greeting right, and to give a snippet of the kind of conversation that I have with people I know.

The more people I know in Stone Town, the longer it takes to walk through town—you can’t just say “hi” as you pass by. It is typical to go through several rounds of the –jambo exchange, with a few “Habari za. . . ?” (“How is your morning/work/family/day/etc.”) exchanges thrown in. If the person you are greeting is young and/or hip, there might also be an exchange of “Mambo vipi?” (Response: “Poa” or “Freshi”), but that’s just a different level of formality for the same kind of exchange—think the difference between “Hello” and “Hi.”

The typical greeting in town for any foreigner is “Jambo,” and that’s a complicated greeting, as you might imagine. It says, partly, that you’re not expected to be able to wade through the grammar necessary for a proper greeting, and partly that you’re a tourist. When I hear it, I always think of Henry Louis Gates on “Signifyin.’” In response, I always answer “Sijambo” now, and then I’ve got a new friend to greet every day.

I’m still struggling to slow down and accept the whole greeting exchange ritual. I like to walk fast, and I like to be friendly, but (as in America), I get impatient with the contentless “How-are-you-I’m-fine” exchanges when I have a destination to get to. In Stone Town, I’m learning to slow down and to pause a bit longer. The better my Kiswahili gets, the more I’m getting out of these exchanges, which can develop after a bit into “Sijambo. . . . Lakini. . .” (I am without troubles, but. . .). Then it starts to go somewhere—if the person I’m talking with is patient and if I’ve learned the vocabulary I need in order to understand what follows the “lakini.”

Today, though, I had a funny exchange in English. Zanzibaris like to practice their English, but the greetings are often strange (like, “Good morning!” at 4 PM). I think Zanzibaris have the same difficulty translating their greetings as I do. They expect every greeting to be a question that invites a reply—as “Habari za asubuhi?” (“How is your morning?”) does. So today, I had this exchange with someone walking in the opposite direction:

Him (at 2 PM): Good morning!

Me (in a hurry and also thinking I’ll bypass the time-of-day issue): Hello!

Him: Fine.

As I continued walking, I wondered, “What was that?” Was that an example of “Signifyin,’” or was it a banal communicative exchange?

Don’t even get me started on the second-most-common greeting for tourists: “Hakuna matata.”

view from our apartment's balcony in Zanzibar