In Translation

Swahili is going about as well as you’d expect, really.  I’d jokingly recruited the Maman who guards the hallowed gates to our office to teach me Swahili.  The best way to do this, she feels, is to bombard me with it until I somehow understand and begin to respond.  The fact that I usually stare at her in frozen terror doesn’t seem to faze her in the slightest.  For example, here is my perception of our conversation to share that she was about to shut off the generator (power is usually out in the morning - slash most of the day - and in order to conserve power, she usually turns out the generator by noon):

“Somethingsomethingsomethingsomethingsomethingsomethingsomething.”

“Timmy’s in the well again!”

“Somethingsomethingsomethingsomethingsomethingsomethingsomething!” [screwing motions with hand and pointing to my laptop]

“I… look, this is a lot of pressure and--” [people-pleaser unable to please]

“Somethingsomethingsomethingsomethingsomethingsomethingsomething.” [pointing downwards]

“Oh, I have to go downstairs!” [panicked compliance]

[pushes me back into my chair with one firm hand]

“Or maybe I should stay just here in my invaded personal bubble.”

“Somethingsomethingapasomethingsomethingsomethingsomethingsomething.” [pointing at my laptop]

[Apa! is what I’ve learned to say to get the buses to stop where I want; I latched on like Gollom on Frodo’s finger.]  “STOP!  You’re going to stop the generator!  I understand, oh, blessed assurance, Jesus is mine and I am saved!”

“Ndiyo!”

“Yes, good!  I will name the grey hair resulting from this conversation after you!  Thank you!”

“Ndiyo!”

French is about the same - I feel like I’ve been studying it for most of my life, gone to various scenic locations to do it, and still haven’t managed to surpass the ceiling that my elementary school French teacher reached with Sol the Clown and The Pizza Song. 

Every few years, I go to a new country and discover one new thing, managing in the meantime to forget something else, and hit the peak of my learning curve.  This time, it’s the fact that Biblical names have French equivalents; I just can’t handle knowledge of this magnitude.

I can understand that John becomes Jean in French.  But that James is Jacques?  Revelation is Apocalypse?   Peter becomes Pierre?  I can’t help but imagine a tall, effeminate man in a striped shirt and a beret, waving a cigarette and shrieking, “Oh mon Dieu, Jesu; you can't just ask ze people to eet your flesh and dreenk your blood!” and the other disciples rolling their eyes: There goes Pierre, quoting Mean Girls again…

Yes, this is what comes to mind when I think of the Pierre on which Jesus built his church. 

This weekend involved another difficult language experience.  I am now sharing an apartment with my Congolese teammate (it is palatial, has a glorious view of the lake, is far beyond our means, and we will be shunted aside when the usual tenants return in a few months, so I’m quite looking forward to moving to a village after this experience), but she has left me to Swahili and French myself into an early grave because she doesn’t love me.

(She says it’s a family reunion – I must confess I do not care.)

In truth, I was looking forward to a weekend entirely alone to bellow Maitre Gims' Hasta Luego, Est-ce que tu m'aimes, Habibi, and Bella on repeat, but this hope was mostly foiled.

The power was out in our apartment alone and someone would be by to fix it - I was meant to be informed of this by the night guard.  I had, however, assumed this was just a facet of life and had gone to bed early (but even if I’d been awake, I’m not sure I would have opened the door at night for anyone short of the angel Gabriel).  I was woken early by the day guard, who’d partially squeezed himself through the slats of an open window to tell me that an entire phalanx of men wanted to enter the apartment to fix the issue.  I nodded regally from behind a nest of hair, hoping to convey understanding instead of braless myopia. 

The next day, I discovered that the fridge and electric stove had not been connected and that everything in the freezer (that did not belong to me) was likely rotting.  Fully dressed, I hurried down to the guard to carry out a painfully French-and-charades conversation about how the plugins in the kitchen were not working – he then wanted me to convey this over the phone to the electrician. 

I hate phone conversations at the best of times.

This was not the best of times.

“Wait, no, I don’t speak-- Hello, don’t mind me, I’m just having my wishes ignored.  Um.  So…”

And then I once again had an apartment full of men fixing the wiring, yelling at each other in Swahili and French, and asking me for money for transportation and jobs in my office.  Moto drivers ask me this all the time, but it was a bit unexpected coming from the manager of the building.

I’m fairly sure I wouldn’t even have my own job if I hadn’t been working for free, but I am now in the process of creating some modules on mental health to use as teaching aides.  As this involves both teaching and psychology, I’m in a happy place.  Now if only French would join me there…

Not all language is unattainable, though.  I’ve spoken Hindi a few times – once to a man who emphatically did not know it, so that’s what I get for racial profiling.  My looks, meanwhile, seem to indicate that I could be Chinese.  Like, it’s a 50/50 split between Chinese or Indian and locals are wary of choosing the wrong one. 

I love it.

One afternoon, little children from the market just laughed in my face, dancing around me and singing Chinois, Chinois!  Then on the way home, a moto driver stopped to chat and ask if I needed a ride.  He then wondered if I was Chinese or Indian.  When I answered, he smilingly said, "Namaste!  Nahin chalega?" in only slightly accented Hindi, and left me in near hysterics with a happy thumbs up.