This March break, 10 students and three faculty members are traveling to Tanzania to learn about sustainable development and educational opportunities in rural Tanzania. Please enjoy the blog post below from Kwasi ’26 where he shares his experience learning Swahili at Mainsprings, reflecting on the power of language as a tool for connection and change.
Today was our last Swahili lesson with Chris, Mainsprings’ CEO who once taught Swahili at NYU. Although these sessions have left me confused at times, I’ve approached every minute with anticipation and joy. I’ve been excited to begin learning a new language on this trip. Picking up bits and pieces of languages over the years like Japanese, Spanish, and my native Ghanaian language, Twi, I was quite eager to add a new path to my linguistic journey. Swahili is an ancient trade language, meaning it shares many words with other languages, specifically English, Arabic, and German. Bantu speakers needed a way to converse and interact with traders from across the Indian Ocean; Swahili grew out of these economic exchanges to become a central cultural feature of East Africa.
I was surprised to learn that students at Mainsprings must learn two languages while at school, English and Swahili. Students come from many different tribes, each with their own distinct languages, so they begin their journey to becoming trilingual in primary school. Learning English and Swahili vastly improve their future social and economic opportunities.
This afternoon at the girls’ home, our group played games and shared arts and crafts activities with the younger girls at the girls’ home. From sidewalk chalk to origami and bracelet making, the kids smiled, laughed and used their English skills during every second of it. I made and passed out to the girls around 60-80 boats in an hour and a half.
Our day took a serious turn during our discussion with Lazaro concerning the evictions and forced relocations in the last 75 years of his tribe, the Maasai people, from the Serengeti and Ngorongoro. He shared how colonialism and post-independence capitalism have regularly uprooted his people from their traditional land and way of life to make way for more National Parks dedicated to safari tourism and western notions of wildlife conservation.
Educated Maasai like Lazaro are fighting back, using their language and organizational skills to spread the news about the Tanzanian government’s unjust treatment of the Maasai. While the Maasai’s struggle to protect their homelands continues to be an uphill one, people like Lazaro and other community activists are making a difference. Recently, an alliance of activist groups protested along the main tourist roads into the Serengeti, using signs in English to spread their cause and message. The international news media captured the scene as Maasai people chanted and waved banners that exclaimed, “Please stop coming here! The money you spend to come here is being used to destroy our people!” The Tanzanian government took notice and, for the moment, pledge to investigate the situation further and better protect the interests of the Maasai. This story brought me back to the power of language, which Lazaro called “systems for change in our modern world.” For Mainsprings’ students, learning English and Swahili is the key to presenting their perspectives and opinions when injustice is present.
As I continue to develop my linguistic skills across various languages, I’ll always keep the wisdom of Lazaro with me, knowing now that languages are not just devices of communication, but tools that can be used for expression, change, and advocation for others.
