Hello everyone and welcome to Tanzania.

My location is the village of Moshi, which is situated east of the northern city of Arusha in Tanzania. Getting here via Nairobi, Kenya provides a direct passage over Mt Kilimanjaro. What a spectacular sight this is from the air. If I am honest, although having climbed this mountain previously, I am still anxious about my hike. They say that no 2 mountains are the same and no 2 climbs are the same, so I’ve got to be careful that I do not fall into the trap of having done this before and not giving the mountain the respect it deserves.

I thought that in this blog, I’d share a few Swahili phrases. Maybe, one day it will help you should you find yourself in East Africa.

To start off, the title of this piece is Jambo which means Hello. Jambo to you all.

On my last trip, our guides, to shorten the long summit night, taught us a song in Swahili. It goes like this:

Jambo, Jambo Bwana

Habari Gani, Mzuri Sana

Wageni, Mkwaribishwa

Kilimanjaro, Hakuna Matata

Which translates to:

Hello Mister

How are you, As for me I am fine

Visitors are welcome in Kilimanjaro

There are no worries