Culture | The power of speaking African languages

After years of thinking about it, saying I would do it, and even attempting to self-teach, I finally enrolled on a Kiswahili (or Swahili) language course. Why Swahili? You may ask. Why not? Is my response.

No I am not East African, yes I have been to East Africa, ok... I will wait for you to finish chuckling. I never receive such responses at having to study French for five years at school and still only improving marginally year upon year! Yet a West African wanting to learn one of the most widely spoken languages in East Africa apparently makes no sense. So let me break it down: