Of Languages and Learning

A lot of the interactions I have with the people around me are essentially desperate efforts on my part to comprehend new things. The guys I work with kinda know my vocabulary, and so they speak, to me, a dumbed-down french that's very easy to understand. Other people not so much, but I can usually understand if the person is persistent. Luckily for me, the people around here are incredibly persistent. Even if I want to give up on a translation or a conversation, well that's just too bad.

One of the better examples happened when I was shopping in town. I had finished my shopping, so I was waiting in the car for everyone else. A little boy came up to the window and started babbling away, before I had even opened it. I rolled it down, and tried to slow him down and see what he wanted, but his message was far too urgent to waste time on clarity.

The phrase "Je di" which means "I say" or "I am saying" is a fairly common one, but I had never heard it used more than I did that day.

Sometimes, he would say it directly after saying it, just in case I missed it the first dozen or so times.

Eventually, once he started using nice friendly words like "car" and "live" and "doctor" I figured out that he was saying that 1. He lived in Mouila, and 2. His doctor was Dr. Renee (who is currently stateside) and that this was her car.

Tres important. Very important. And it probably took him about ten minutes to communicate that.

With the guys, when jokes can not be easily translated, we resort to mimicry as our comedy. We mimic Mr. Paul, we mimic all the missionaries, we mimic each other. It's good fun.

For example, one time, Luke Thelander, the elementary age son of one of the missionary couples here, was shadowing Mr. Paul to learn whatever he could, and to flesh out his homeschooling.

I had made a joke a couple days ago, telling him that he couldn't rip my shirt because I only had 5 shirts, and five months to live here, and therefore one shirt for each month.

Luke asked me, in his young voice "Is that this month's shirt?" I responded "Yup" and he laughed, "hehehehehe".

Olivier, without looking up from his work, replicated as closely he could our voices and words. It sounded something like

*high voice* "bli bla la mah sheer"
*super-duper-overdone-deep-voice* "Yup"
*high voice again* "hehehehehe"

Still though, since not everyone is in on the joke, we try and keep it between the guys and Mr. Paul, just to be polite.

Today I was walking back to the garage at the end of the day with Olivier. I had eschewed my shirt for the day, as it was soggy to the point of dripping.

Mr. Paul's wife Meladee saw me, and in a sing-song voice, said "Someone's gonna get burned!"

I mimicked her sing-song tone, and said "Someone already is!"

Olivier thought I was teasing her, and made the noise and face you make when a kid takes his pants off in a church foyer.

Luckily I found a way to translate that I was agreeing with her, not mocking.

Last story.

I was working with Jaures. Jaures knows a lot of basic english words. Mostly nouns though, so he's not much of a speaker.

He got my attention, and said "Time is Money!" which sounded like "taim ees mohnee". I asked him who said that, looking for the answer Benjamin Franklin. He knows a lot of random facts, and I was curious to know if he knew that.

He looked confused. He made a hand motion that we make often, slowly flipping his hands over to say "what are you talking about?"

I repeated my question.

He paused for a few seconds more, and then said "question?" in a voice that indicated that he meant "is that really a question?"

I said yes, a little confused.

He paused a bit longer. With a voice confused by my confusion, he said "...me."

Sunrise, Sans Peace

The other day, I decided it would be cool to see a sunrise out here in Africa. There is a hill that lends itself to sunrise watching just a short walk from my house, so I decided to mosey on over early one morning.

Key plot point- All the preceeding night, I had heard dogs barking and running around. We've had a bit of an infestation lately. The dogs here can be pretty nasty/dangerous, so I brought a machete, just as a worst case scenario sort of thing.

Turns out the sunrises here are pretty lame, because the mist rises up as the sun does, and blocks out any view.

The mist was however pretty interesting to see, and from that hill (which also has a giant radio tower with a ladder on it) I could see for miles in a couple of directions. The African plains were covered in a fluffy, chilly blanket of white.

Since I was busy viewing vistas, (and did not spend my whole time up on the nice safe radio tower) I had been praying that if God allowed dogs to get near me, that he'd at least give me some preparation time.

I was up on the radio tower when I decided that this sunrise thing was a bit of a lost cause. I had left my machete down on the ground. I climbed down, getting a little dizzy from the height.

The second my foot hit the ground, I heard the most gut-twisting howly charge-bark I have ever heard. It was territorial, it was grumpy, and it was getting closer.

My first thought-

"dogs travel in packs."

My second thought-

"that was like... the perfect amount of preparation time"

So I snagged my machete, whipped around, struck a ready pose, and started thinking about strategy for fighting a pack of dogs.

All of this is in the expanse of about two seconds.

When my eyes adjusted to the distance and picked up the dog shape, I realized the dog was not so much charging, as it was galumphing.

It was also shaped like a barely oblong submarine with sticks coming out of it.

It was the fat, ugly, lovable dog that belonged to the Pastor of the local church.

So here I am, sputtering and trying to push down my caveman instincts, while trying to pull out my "make this stupid dog shut up because it's six o' clock in the morning for crying out loud" instincts, which is a very specific file, and difficult to search for on such short notice.

At this moment, Dr. Dave Thompson stepped out of his front door, all dressed in jogging attire. He witnessed quite a sight.

Hard Work and a Serious Little Dude, Part II

The next day I happened to be wearing sunglasses. At one point I was sitting on a bench, and I motioned for him to sit next to me. He did. We just kinda sat there quietly for a bit. Then just as I got up, he reached up and touched my sunglasses, which were hanging on my shirt collar. So I let him borrow them.

My sunglasses, which are large even for my face, looked like triangular computer monitors on his.

He none the less donned a serious "cool" face. I actually forgot my camera that day, so this picture of him is from Thursday.

Slightly off-kilter sunglasses are totally in right now.

However, I needed my sunglasses back, and wasn't quite sure how to say "If I don't have my sunglasses my eyes will be crunchy by the time I go back to the states."

So I decided to make him a trade. I had brought my balloon animals with me as well (a backpack is a very handy thing) so I pulled those out and asked him his favorite color. He chose red. I asked him if he liked dogs, and he nodded. So I pumped it up, and twisted him up a dog (much to the amusement of every person in seeing range.)

The glasses were soon forgotten entirely.

After a while of him making the dog bounce along the pavement, float in the air, twist in half, and pop back into shape again, the tired canine burst.

The old guy in the blue shirt took an interest in the remaining pieces. He tried to blow up the end piece with his mouth, but couldn't, so I gave him the pump, and he made a little caterpillar lookin' thing, by pumping up the balloon little by little and tying it off after each section. It was fun watching him and Serious Dude  interact. I don't think they were related though- kids are kinda public property around here.

At this point the project had a new direction, but had not yet obtained a plan. So at very least we were only searching for a seemingly invisible pipe under dirt, instead of cement. Still pretty discouraging.

Finally, on Thursday, we found the pipe we were looking for, and once we had that tiny bit of info, we were able to formulate a plan. Now, not only are we working with purpose, but our purpose is something that will affect the hospital for many years in a significant way.

However, we still have to dig crazy amounts of dirt in insane temperatures/humidity.

By Friday, we had essentially routed the whole thing. That was a beast of a project, and it's nice to look at it now and see how much improvement has been made.

Also, on Friday, I saw SLD smile, for the first, and as far as I know, the last time. Turns out the secret is off-roading in wheelchairs.