Jambo Means Hello

I know you've all always wanted to know how to say "hello" in Swahili, so there you go-jambo. I have learned this, and many other, valuable pieces of information in my attempts to learn Swahili this past week. I should have started on this endeavor a while ago but I was distracted (by such silly things as finals) and then I forgot about it. I am pleased to say that I am making significant progress, though I don't think that have such phrases as "Would you like to pray to receive Jesus as Savior?" quite down by the time I leave. On that note, I leave in just two weeks. I'm starting to feel ever so slightly...oh... freaked out? That might be a little too strong a phrase though. One would think that I, intrepid world traveler that I am, would not be worried about a mere two weeks abroad, but, alas, one would be wrong. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited- it's like when you first get on a roller coaster and start going up the first hill- that sort of "freaked out"- the good sort- and I'm really excited about stepping out of my box to do what my beloved Jesus is doing. But anyway, we were talking about Swahili. I've had an interesting time trying to figure out some little bit of the language and so far I think it's going rather well. (My favorite thing to say is the poetic-sounding "asante sana" or thank you very much.) I discovered an online Swahili-English dictionary (I did print up four pages of useful Swahili from the group I'm going with so I'm not dependent on whatever resources I scrounge up myself). This dictionary is perhaps not the most dependable resource, as demonstrated by the example sentences they offered:

for "young person" (I don't remember the Swahili translations, sorry)
"Each policeman had got for himself more than one young wife".

Really? The abundance of young wives for policemen is really what you think of when you hear the word "young person"?

for "young girl" (Oh, dear, where will they go with this? more about young wives?)
"all men like to be with young girls".

Fantastic. (I am happy to say that there were no other example sentences like that one.)

for "woman (old enough to be an aunt)" (Wow, that's one oddly specific word)
"The father of John is like my aunt".
wait, what?
"the FATHER of John (okay) is like my AUNT".
If I could type the transition from puzzled face to greatly amused face, I would, but as that is not an option, it will have to suffice for you to imagine it.

If they can't even manage to translate "mama" (the swahili for mother) to mother correctly (it was mama in the Swahili version so I'm assuming that was their intent) then I'm not entirely sure that I should trust to their accuracy (of course the proceeding example sentences had already made me think that this was not the most reliable of dictionaries). So that is the end of me looking up online Swahili dictionaries, though it was quite fun. :)

Clinicals

I've been very lax about writing. My deepest apologies.
Anyway, on to our subject today! I'm not sure how much I've told you all about clinicals (you all mainly being all you Matsons as I think most of my other readers have heard about it in great detail), so I will summarize it for you:
Upon my last chat with my academic advisor I learned that there was the possibility of starting clinicals this fall (for you non-nursing people clinicals are when you actually go work at a hospital as part of your classes), however i needed a GPA of at least 3.3 (mine was slightly below that) and my AP scores weren't in. So I studied practically every spare moment I had, and after much drama managed to get the AP scores delivered, but I was sure I hadn't done quite well enough to get that 3.3. I'm sure you can see where this is going. I just checked my grades (finally) and my cumulative GPA is 3.331! I'll find out if a start clinicals mid summer (possibly while i'm in Tanzania).