Approval

It is my conviction that with all things in life, old Brown ladies are the hardest to impress. Thus, if you get their approval, you have succeeded and nothing else matters. Plus, they all talk so getting one's approval is equivalent to getting them all.
If you don't believe this about old brown women, then I have a short story for you:

I went to a traditional Zanzibari wedding yesterday. Just quickly, the men meet the groom at the mosque, listen to a few prayers and then eat some halua (this warm gooey tough jello thing), sambusa (samosa), and kahava (coffee). The women do something similar at home with the bride, but I'm told there's no food. After, the bride and groom meet at the reception and are then ridiculed by old brown women who don't even know them. It's just tradition.
Everyone makes a tiny speech wishing the newlyweds well. (seriously everyone - this takes a while) At this particular wedding, the father of the groom made an interesting speech. He mentioned that his son had been able to marry the girl of his choice, which is something new in their culture. Now the father of the groom is Ismaili and his wife is Sunni - it's odd that this was an arranged marriage. Although, there aren't too many Ismailis left in Zanzibar so maybe it was a necessity - Nyerere and nationalization, look it up.
But back to the old brown women; they stole the mic after these speeches and made hilarious comments the rest of the evening. For example, when the bride and groom went to kiss but slightly missed, these women said something in swahili along the lines of, "if you can't even kiss now, how are you gonna make a baby tonight?"

So when one old brown lady complemented me on my Swahili skills, I knew that in my quest to speak Swahili, I had succeeded.