Language Barriers

I have lived in Malawi for a little over 11 months, and the most frustrating part of it all is the feeling I have that nobody understands what I’m saying. My Chitonga is decent, I can speak more than I believed I’d be able to, and if people stick to a few predefined subjects, I can understand conversations that I hear. Of course, the easiest way to ensure that conversations stay within the realm of my understanding is to actively participate in them; safe subjects include: my dog, eating, cooking, things my dog eats and or kills, things people cook for my dog to eat, sewing, buying food, walking places, traveling to the capitol city or Mzuzu, washing my clothes, nodding emphatically, telling children to stop yelling at me/following me/asking me for money, saying I don’t understand, telling people I don’t speak Chichewa, telling people that if it is indeed Chitonga that they’re speaking, to please slow down because I’m learning. That’s about all I have, but I have become resourceful with mixing and matching things from these categories.
A sample conversation with a neighbor:

Timoneni Ama (hello lady)
Yeawo, Mwe Uli? (Thank you, how are you)
Nde umampha, mwe uli? (I’m fine, and you are?)
Nde umampha. Hector mwe uli? (Fine. Hector is how?)
Ehhh! Hector wa suzgo! (Ah, Hector is trouble!)
Eh? Wa suzgo? (Hector is trouble?)
Ehh! (Yes.)
Eh! Chifukwa uli Hector wa suzgo? (What is the reason why she is trouble?)
Hector wabya nyoli! (Hector killed a chicken)
Anyacki wa sewe? (Maybe she is playing?)
Panyaki, panyaki cha (Maybe, maybe not)
Ndi paseni nsima (I will give her Nsima)
Ehh! Hector watanja vykula ya Malawi kuluska ku vykula ya Ameraca (Hector likes Malawian food more than American food)
Hey! Hector wa galu ya mzungu cha! (Ah, she is not a white person dog)
Et! Asani, wa buya causwae (Also, she killed a rat.)
Et? (?)
Et! (!)
Causwae wamkulu? (A big rat?)
Et! Wamkulu! (Yeah! A big one!)
Et! Hector ya’umampha (Ah! Hector is good!)
Et! Vyo, ndi luta ku numba (Yes! Ok, now I am going to my house)

My dog’s hunting and eating habits are about as complex as my conversations can get which, hey, is more than I can say about my French speaking skills, which is a language I have studied for a good six years.

I get frustrated when I try to say something outside of my range. I have a second women’s group that I have become involved with over this summer, it is a great group, but none of the women can speak any English, so I either need my counterpart to translate for me, or I need to muddle through with gestures and my small amount of Tonga. We get by.

Sometimes I want to express something new to someone I meet on the street, some agogo (grandmother) or maybe a little kid and I just can’t. It is sad, because I just want to be understood, and I want to understand other people, and we don’t have the same vocabulary.
It even happens when I talk to other Americans, or friends from back home- somehow I forget not to use my Malawian/Peace Corps slang, resulting in exchanges like this:

“Piotr, can you watch my Khutundu? I need to go to the chim, and I don’t like the looks of these iwe.”
“What is Khutundu?”
“You know, all of your ujeni”

But it isn’t just the weird words that get in the way, even in completely straightforward conversations; I get the feeling that I’m not saying what I mean to say. I don’t feel like I’ve changed all that much, but maybe I have, and that’s the reason why it is so hard to be understood. I long ago realized not to refer to my house here as ‘home’, because people think I’m talking about America. I’d say something like ‘I’m going home tomorrow’ on my blog, and I’d get concerned e-mails and phone calls asking me why I was quitting the Peace Corps. More than a few times I’ve told a story that I find funny, and the person on the other end of the line just responds with ‘oh my god’.

The thing I find strangest is when people say that what I’m doing is somehow noble or admirable- it makes me uncomfortable, because I feel that something people say is noble should be harder than this. If it weren’t for the fact that I miss my friends and family, I could easily live in my little house here for much longer than two years and be happy. My place is starting to get comfortable, I like my job, I’m within walking distance of the beach, and I have a lot of time to read and sew. If I had a refrigerator, a toilet, and internet access here, it’d be perfect. It also feels strange when people say stuff like that to me because I feel mostly positive about my life here, and I think that lots of people could do this. It’s hard to explain, and I don’t think that I’m doing a good job, but I wouldn’t describe my life here as ‘noble’. What about our public school teachers in America? Their jobs are harder than mine is here, aren’t they noble?

Like I said, I don’t think I’m doing a good job explaining myself, and that’s the main reason why I don’t think I’ll extend my term of service here after my time is up next year. A lot of people extend their service into a 3rd year, and though I like my job and my life here, I miss being in a place where I can be understood.

Does that make sense?

beeb