(Every day, I study Swahili)
I read once that speaking a new language is like trying to talk with marshmallows in your mouth. I especially like that this description captures the physical difficulties of trying to converse in a foreign tongue. When I try and speak Swahili, nothing feels right. It is like I’m talking with my mouth full as I awkwardly contort over new words and my normally mile-a-minute speech slows to a halt.
After being here over two months, at the beginning of the April I finally started taking Swahili classes. For four hours each morning, myself, and Indian and a Swede fumble through questions and flashcards with an exceptionally patient teacher. By the time we have a break at 10 am, we all flee the class for a shot of caffeine from the coffee shop downstairs which conveniently does not have takeaway cups, but which miraculously prepared a salad for me to pick up at the end of one of my classes (I had been highly doubtful about the potential success of that request). What never ceases to amaze me is that both of my classmates are learning Swahili in English, a language that isn’t their mother tongue. This puts my relative progress in sharp relief!
Because I go to work right after my class, I’ve found the past couple of weeks particularly exhausting. However, finally learning some basic Swahili has been liberating. I can now flag down a bajaj (tuk tuk), tell them where I’d like to go and ‘negotiate’ a price. This needs to be put in quotations because of the time delay between the bajaji telling me the price and me translating that price, thinking of a counter price in English and then translating that to Swahili. By that time, the gig is up and I’m certainly not going to get a particularly good deal, but the upshot is that I am getting more reasonable starting points, so that‘s something!
Although I have the misfortune of speaking only one language fluently and another cryptically (French), I have now made efforts at learning both Lao and Swahili. I concede this is not much of a sample size, but I have observed that a language can tell you some important things about a culture. For example, in Lao, there are numerous different words to describe love in different contexts. Although I forget most of them now, it is clear that a group of people who has characterized so many forms of love afford it prominence in their culture. This was affirmed by the spirit of the people that I met over my seven months there and only underscores the immense tragedy of the Vietnam/American War and its enduring legacy. Similarly, after just a couple of days in Tanzania, I realized how important greetings are. When you see someone, it is common to ask them how they are doing, how their house is doing, how their work is going, what the news is etc, etc. Up until the past two weeks my greetings have been pretty rudimentary:
‘welcome!’ (karibu) ‘thank you’ (asante)
‘how are you?’ (mambo?) ‘fine’ (poa)
‘what is the news this afternoon?’ (habari za mchana) à silence!!!
I can now fill that silence with an answer and follow it with a myriad of other simple questions like: ‘what did you do last night?’ and “what are you working on?” It will take a lot more effort and time to hope to have a semi-involved conversation with someone. But now at least I can be polite and reciprocate my very warm welcome. A door has been opened. Asante sana! (thank you)
