Meet the Swahili

Swahili people are an ethnic group living chiefly on the Swahili Coast of East Africa, mainly the coastal regions and the islands of Kenya and Tanzania, and north Mozambique. The name Swahili is derived from the Arabic word Sawahil, meaning "coastal dwellers". They speak Swahili, a Bantu language and the official language of Kenya.

Islam established its presence in the East African coast around 1012 AD, when the traders from the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula continued to journey to these parts during monsoon seasons and to interact with the local people through trade, intermarriage, and an exchange of ideas. Because of this interaction, most of the Swahili today are Muslim. The unifying force of Islam consolidated into an amalgam of otherwise different ethnicities and provided an enduring common identity for many of the people in coastal East Africa. The Swahili follow a very strict and orthodox form of Islam.

For centuries the Swahili depended greatly on trade from the Indian Ocean. The Swahili have played a vital role as middle man between east, central and south Africa, and the outside world. Trade contacts have been noted as early as 100 AD by early Roman writers who visited the East African coast in the first century. Trade routes extended across Tanzania into modern day Democratic Republic of the Congo, along which goods were brought to the coasts and were sold to Arab, Indian, and Portuguese traders and even reached as far as China and India. Materials attributed to this network of trade were also found at Great Zimbabwe. During the apogee of the middle ages, ivory and slaves became a substantial source of revenue. Many slaves sold in Zanzibar ended up in Brazil, which was then a Portuguese colony. Swahili fishermen of today still rely on the ocean to supply their primary source of income. Fish is sold to their inland neighbors in exchange for products of the interior.

Photo credit: Solarstones

Swahili Food and Drink, Part 2

Last week we introduced Swahili food- and drink-related activities and nouns, and this week we continue that lesson.

Next week we will will continue this lesson:)

Need help with your Swahili pronunciation? Refer to our guide.

This Week in Kenya

We at World of Difference love to stay apprised of Kenyan current events. Here are some of the headlines that caught our attention this week.

• Kenya Urged to Sell Itself More [Daily Nation]
• Kenya Great Migration is an Experience of a Lifetime [eTurboNews]
• Kenya Launches Safe Blood Collection Effort [VOA News]
• Teachers Call for Relevant Curriculum [AllAfrica.com]
• Kenyan Schools Disaster in the Making [Daily Nation]
• Kenya Bomb Explosion Wake Up Call for Region [AllAfrica.com]
• Child Mortality Rates Up in African Despite UN Push [Associated Press]
• Kakuma Camp Cuts Child Malnutrition [IRIN News]
• Kenya Has Millions Pending Court Cases [Capital News]
• Kenya Opens Fast-Track Piracy Court in Mombassa [BBC News]
• Fresh Challenges in Kenya HIV Battle [Capital News]

Meet the Taita

The Taita people are a Kenyan ethnic group located in the Taita-Taveta District, which is in the Coast Province northwest of Mombasa and southeast of Nairobi.

The Taita people migrated to Kenya through Tanzania. This migration occurred in five groups, each settling at different places of the present Taita Taveta district. Traditionally the Taita tribe consisted of lineages; each lineage occupied its own territorial area of the hills. These lineages were autonomous political units, and, before the colonialism, there did not develop an idea or a consciousness of a unified Taita tribe. Mwangeka, a legendary figure for the Taitas, resisted the British colonists from approaching the lands of the Wataita.

They speak Taita, a Bantu language full of shared words from the Chagga, Wakamba, Pare, Maasai, Kikuyu, Mijikenda tribes, as well as the Cushitic communities they lived with during their migration.

Photo credit: Getty Images

Swahili Food and Drink, Part 1

Last week we learned some Swahili Pronouns, and this week we introduce Swahili food- and drink-related activities and nouns.

Next week we will will continue this lesson:)

Need help with your Swahili pronunciation? Refer to our guide.

This Week in Kenya

We at World of Difference love to stay apprised of Kenyan current events. Here are some of the headlines that caught our attention this week.

• Kenyan Leader Urges Tolerance [Capital News]
• Billion-Dollar Plan to Spur Business Growth in Kenya [The East African]
• Ordinary Heros: Surviving Critial Strikes in Kenya's Urban Slums [Huffington Post]
• Kenya Braces for Food Shortages [The Guardian]
• Kenya MPs Charged with Hate Speech Over Constitution [BBC News]
• Kenya Arrest Three Over Deadly Blast [Affiliated Press]
• Kenya: Avoid Bedevilled Past [AllAfrica.com]
• Kenya's Shilling Edges Higher Against the Dollar [Reuters Africa]
• Survey Reveals Kenyan Marriages in Crisis Amid Pressures of Modern Life [AllAfrica.com]

Meet the Embu

The Embu inhabit Embu District in Kenya. Embu mythology claims that God (Ngai) created Mwenendega and gave him a beautiful wife by the famous Mbui Njeru waterfall — hence her name "Ciurunji". The couple was blessed with wealth, and their descendants populated the rest of Embu.

Judging by historical accounts, the Embu are believed to have migrated from the Congo Basin together with their close relatives, the Kikuyu and Meru People. It is believed that they migrated as far as the Kenyan Coast, since the Meru elders refer to Mpwa (Pwani or Coast) as their origin. The conflicts there, perhaps slave trade by Arabs, forced them to retreat northeast to the interior of Kenya, and they settled by the slopes of Mount Kenya. They were to refer to this location as the place of the Lord, the owner of the snow("Nyaga") or ("Njeru" meaning white) — hence the name "Mwenenyaga" or "Mwenenjeru".

The Embu are cash crop and subsistent farmers who also rear cows, goats and sheep. With the advent of colonialism, many cash crops were introduced. For long these have offered a lucrative alternative source of livelihood for the people. The most widespread cash crops to date are coffee, tea and macadamia nuts. These are mainly grown for sale with little being processed for domestic consumption.

The Embu were fierce warriors who, although rarely raiding other tribes, always stood firm in defense of their territory and people. They also rose against the British in the Mau Mau fight for Kenya's independence. The fact that the tribe was and continues to be considerably small explains their relatively small impact on the history of Kenya.

Much abounds in the Embu District to keep the most eager tourist and visitor enthralled, not least the Embu people themselves who carry about their daily life with a deep sense of filial attachment to each other. They are a hospitable people, always welcoming to visitors and eager to help. This has endeared them to their neighbors and to strangers from far. Embu girls are known to make remarkable wives and mothers, while the men treat their wives with such respect and never ending love that hardly ever is family breakdown a subject of deliberation. For long, Kikuyu, Meru and Kamba men have come to get brides from Embu, while the Embu men enjoy high regard from marriageable girls in the same tribes. With the advent of Kenya nationalism, this high regard has permeated to the entire nation, and now the Embu form one respected unit of the Kenyan social fabric.

Photo credit: Guy Radcliffe