All the Swahili I needed was in the Lion King

Pumbaas at the pool

One of the many surprising things about Kenya was the use of Swahili. Almost everyone we encountered in Nairobi and on the mara spoke excellent English so it wasn't really necessary to know much Swahili. Still, I like to learn languages and Swahili is very easy to pick up, much easier than Amharic, the language primarily spoken in Ethiopia. Amharic has it's own alphabet so trying to learn it is like trying to learn Chinese.

So I was always trying to learn new Swahili words and mastered 10-12 words and phrases. I learned that some of the words in Lion King are actual Swahili words-who knew Disney paid such attention to cultural detail? Our guide called the warthogs Pumbaas and said Hakuna Matata all of the time. This may have been for the benefit of the Americans and it was a practice I came to dislike because then the song would stick in my head.