White Palace

When I went to Lushoto this past weekend we stopped by my friend’s uncle’s new hotel to say hello. It is still under construction, but should be ready to open next month. It is a beautiful white building with Greek-style columns, self-contained rooms, heated water, and a full restaurant area.

After the tour the uncle asked me if I would give his hotel a name. He wanted an English name so that tourists would be attracted to it, and no amount of protesting or delaying allowed me to get out of coming up with a name for him. By the end of the weekend I had come up with “The White Palace,” “The Pegasus Hotel” (to be accompanied by a drawing of a flying horse, of course) and “The Hillside Hotel.”

From my own experience, remembering names is highly dependent on cultural relevance. I am about ten times more likely to memorize the name of a student who has a western style name, or at least one I can pronounce, no matter how hard I try. It is also hard for me to learn words that have strange associations with English words. For example, if you want to say “I am tired” in Kiswahili, you say “Nimechoka.” “Nimelala,” or “I am sleeping” is a lot easier since “Lala” sounds a lot more like a lullaby, whereas being tired sounds a lot more like choking someone. (I ended up memorizing the word by imaging wrestlers choking each other out until they go unconscious.)

In any case, I asked Victoria to evaluate my name selections to see if (1) they could be pronounced, (2) they weren’t associated with anything negative, and (3) they would be easy to remember.

It turns out that Pegasus is a bad choice since the beginning of the word sounds like “pig” and the owner is Muslim. The owner actually wanted to name it after me, but I told him that would be a terrible idea since all of the Manchester United and Arsenal fans here would go looking elsewhere for a place to sleep. The White Palace ended up being the selection, so if you ever go to Soni, Tanzania make sure you stop by!