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."