Cultural Lesson

If you don't know, the Toledo Public Library is awesome.  I've been using the library website for the past few months to access, for free, a language learning software called Mango Languages to learn some basic Swahili before I go to Kenya and Tanzania.  I'm by no means fluent, but it's been helpful.

In one recent lesson I learned that the Swahili word for stranger is mgeni.  However, Mango also included a footnote that explained the literal meaning of mgeni is actually "guest" in English.  I found it interesting that the Swahili word for stranger is one that actually implies you are currently getting to know that stranger so that the stranger doesn't stay a stranger for very long.

Then a few days later, I learned a related piece of information as I continue to read Anabaptist Songs in African Hearts.  In African traditional religion, there is a keen awareness of the conflict between Good and Evil that is played out in every day life.  Good is understood as that which promotes life, and Evil is understood as that which diminishes or destroys life.Because Good promotes and enhances life, acts of generosity and hospitality are understood as having spiritual significance.

That made me think of the word mgeni that I learned a few days earlier. Not only does African traditional religion place spiritual value on practices such as hospitality, the Swahili language doesn't even include a word that creates a category of people whom one doesn't know (i.e. strangers).  In Swahili, there are no strangers.  There are only guests; guests to whom we can show hospitality.

We in the good old USA are not known as one of the most hospitable cultures in the world.  We are schooled in "stranger danger" and taught to fend for ourselves under the doctrine of rugged individualism.  Now there may be some reasons for those cultural traits that aren't all bad, but it is a much different starting place than a culture whose word for stranger is mgeni.

It strikes me that on this matter, the Swahili language and culture is much closer to the biblical culture.  I think of Abraham offering hospitality to the three mgeni in Genesis 18 and the prophet Ezekiel's condemnation of Sodom in Ezekiel 16:49.  Additionally, there's the example of Jesus feeding the 5,000 and curing the sick, Peter went to the gentile Cornelius in Acts 10, and the author of Hebrews instructs us not to neglect showing hospitality to mgeni for in doing so you may entertain an angel without realizing it.  The list could go on and on.

Well I'm not expert on African religion(s) and/or culture(s), but I thought the connection was interesting and my mind went in these directions.

We depart tomorrow!  At the moment, the excitement is outweighing the fear.
Safari Njema (bon voyage)