Muuguzi alipaka marashi kwenye paji lake, kisha akafunga bandeji ndogo juu ya jeraha.

Muuguzi is gender-neutral. It can mean a male nurse or a female nurse.

Swahili usually does not mark natural gender the way English sometimes does. If you really want to specify, you can say:

• muuguzi wa kike = female nurse
• muuguzi wa kiume = male nurse

So by itself, muuguzi just means nurse.

Because Swahili verbs already include the subject.

For example:

• alipaka = a-

  • -li-
    • -paka
  • a- = he/she
  • -li- = past tense
  • -paka = apply/spread

• akafunga = a-

  • -ka-
    • -funga
  • a- = he/she
  • -ka- = then/next in a sequence
  • -funga = tie/bandage/fasten

So Swahili often does not need a separate subject pronoun like he or she, especially when the subject is already clear.

They are both past-time forms, but they do slightly different jobs.

• alipaka is a regular past tense: he/she applied
• akafunga uses -ka-, which is very common in narration and sequences of actions: and then he/she tied/bandaged

So the sentence does not just say two past actions. It presents them as a sequence:

1. first the nurse applied the ointment
2. then the nurse tied/put on the bandage

That is why akafunga sounds very natural here.

Kisha means then / afterwards / next.

It helps make the order of events extra clear. In this sentence, both kisha and -ka- point to the next step in the story, so together they sound very natural.

You can think of it as a bit of reinforcement:

• kisha = then
• aka- = and then he/she...

Swahili often uses both in narrative speech and writing.

This is a noun-class agreement issue.

Paji belongs to noun class 5, and possessives must agree with the noun class of the thing possessed.

The possessive stem is -ake = his/her.
With class 5, the agreement prefix is la-, so:

• la
  • ake → lake

So:

• paji lake = his/her forehead

It is not yake because paji does not take the ya- possessive agreement.

It can mean either one.

Swahili third-person singular does not distinguish he and she in the way English does. So:

• lake = his / her
• a- in the verb = he / she

Only the context tells you which one is meant.

Yes, it can. Paji refers to the forehead or brow area.

You may also see:

• paji la uso = forehead, literally something like the brow of the face

In context, just paji is enough and sounds natural.

Kwenye is a locative word that can mean in, on, at, onto, depending on context.

Here it means something like:

• on the forehead
• onto the forehead

So kwenye paji lake means the ointment was applied to that location.

This is very normal Swahili usage: one locative form can cover several English prepositions, and the exact translation depends on the situation.

Juu ya means on top of / over.

That works well with a bandage, because a bandage is placed over a wound, covering it.

So:

• juu ya jeraha = over the wound

If you said kwenye jeraha, that would be more like on the wound. That is also possible in some contexts, but juu ya is especially natural when something is laid or fastened over a surface.

It often behaves like a mass noun, even though it looks plural in form.

In real usage, marashi can mean things like:

• ointment
• cream
• lotion
• medicated oil

So even if it resembles a plural noun morphologically, learners should often treat it semantically like an uncountable substance word in English.

In this sentence, it simply refers to the ointment or medicinal cream that was applied.

Because bandeji belongs to noun class 9, and adjectives must agree with the noun class.

The adjective stem is -dogo = small.
With a class 9 noun like bandeji, the agreeing form is:

• ndogo

So:

• bandeji ndogo = small bandage

Kidogo would be used with a class 7 noun, not with bandeji.

Because Swahili normally does not use articles like a, an, and the.

Whether a noun is definite or indefinite is usually understood from context.

So:

• muuguzi can mean a nurse or the nurse
• bandeji ndogo can mean a small bandage or the small bandage
• jeraha can mean a wound or the wound

English has to choose one, but Swahili usually leaves that to context.