May 25, 2001

Word by Word, Researchers Build an Ode to Swahili Poetry

By BURTON BOLLAG

Sikudhani Mohamedi Jalala earns her living repairing shoes in her home here, a cinder-block shack in the sprawling, unpaved outskirts of Tanzania's capital. In her spare time she writes poetry.

One recent midday, she brings four little stools out of the shack for some visitors and places them on the red soil in the shade of a banana tree. As CNN broadcasts the news on a television inside, Ms. Jalala sings her verses in her native Swahili.

Some of her poems beseech thieves