First day of Kiswahili class

Habari mabibi na mabwana?
Habari chula?

I think I just exhausted the full extent of my Kiswahili. In case you had no idea what what I was saying I wrote, "Any news ladies and gentlemen?" and, "Any news from school?" When I signed up for the class I had no idea that it would be so hard. Everyone kept on saying its so easy it was a trading language so its not to complicated and its phonetic, it'll be a piece of cake, boy were they wrong. Let me back track a little on Monday I woke up early because I had to leave by 8:00 am to walk over to the Language Center where I am taking the class. It is a pretty short walk only about five minutes but I had to get there early to get my book and pay for my classes for the week. I got there in time and paid for anything and then as I was lead by one of the people who work there to the classroom I was able to meet the two other people who are in the class. There was Desta who lives in Sudan but said she was from Ethiopia and Sister Collette who is an Irish nun who has been in Kenya for a week. Our teacher Asunta was very nice and had us go around and take turns saying what Kiswahili words we know now. From the two words I said, mambo and poa, she asked if I am around a lot of young people because they are slang which I thought was pretty funny.

After that we went over the alphabet and I learned a couple of weird thing. For example, there is not C by itself there is a Ch though. There is no Q and there is no X instead they have some other random letters to replace it. I can't remember because embarrassing as this was I didn't have my notebook during the first half of class I didn't bring one. During the tea and andazi (Kenyan pastry) break I went to the front desk and begged for some paper which I am eternally grateful for because the class was cranked in to high gear for the second half. We went over greeting which sounds simple enough but it wasn't. There are just so many ways to ask the same question. Hujambo, Habari, Mambo, Habari yako and Habari gani all basically mean the same thing how are you or news literally. Then Habari zenu, Habari and Hatujambo is news but plural when you are greeting a crowd of people. Then there are just so many ways you can reply, nzuri (good), safi (clean), njema (fine), poa (cool), salama (safe), hivi hivi (50-50/ so so), si mbaya (not bad). There is just so much vocabulary that you have to remember. Then there is all the things you can ask about, school (chule), mke (wife), children (watoto), friends (rafiki), it just goes on and on and on. I think I am the worst one in the class. I am always raising my hand and asking dumb questions and when the teacher asks me a question in Kiswahili it takes me so long so gather my thoughts translate what she is saying and then go through the Kiswahili rolodex in my head to find the right word to rely with. I really should go and practice dada, muhana, leo.....