A month and a few days after being broken up with. Establishing myself in my Singledom.
Bits of conversation with friends freak me out. Especially male friends. I have had several people remind me to relax and not to take myself or those around me so seriously. I have had a few people get their feelings hurt by my reticence. It's not intentional. I know that I'm totally wound up and feeling extra vulnerable and defensive in this Single world of mine. I don't feel very generous right now with my time/self. As my Dad reflected back to me, "this is a time to contract".
I'm spending a lot of time invested in my work and collaging and thinking about dance projects.
Yesterday, someone at work randomly said, "I know that 'I like beer' in Swahili is 'ikitikitembi'." At first I was intimidated with how easily that rolled off their tongue and the fact that I didn't recognize it at all--I assumed that I didn't speak Swahili as well as they did. Then, I realized it was just a single phrase they'd been taught. I was like, hmmm, that doesn't sound right at all. So I rationalized what I thought they probably meant to say. My thought process:
* "I in the present" is not "i-ki" but "ni-na".
* Probably by "like" they mean "want" which is "taka" not "tiki".
* And I think they're requesting a specific beer, "Tembo" (the one with the elephant on the label), not "tembi" which, I think, is nonsense. If they had literally meant "beer" it would have been "bia" which doesn't sound like "tembi".
* He probably mis-remembered "ikitikitembi" because it DOES flow easily off the tongue, a little bit easier than "ninataka tembo."
Funny. I understand how "it's all greek to me" to compare those two phrases--they do sound similar, sorta. In my head, though, one is gibberish, and the other is intelligible parts of speech. I'm kind of astounded that 12 years after my trip to Tanzania, I still hear and can make out bits and pieces of swahili. Little pieces of comfort like this are important to me right now.
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