How to communicate and make yourself understood with a very limited vocabular:
1. Know negations.
Learn them early. Knowing how to negate a statement can virtually double your descriptive prowess. You don't know the word for solid, or hard? Call it "not squishy," or "unsoft." And why fret over discovering the correct word for freezing when you can refer to a snowman as "very, very, very not hot."
ex: He is not happy because a not-old person threw an unsquishy rock that failed to miss his head.
2. Be creative.
Don't confine yourself to a single habitual way of saying things. You don't know how to say "the meal was delicious"? So what. Say that "The food tasted great." Or say that "The eatables made my tongue very happy." Or maybe you know how to explain that "those things which are now in my stomach were pleasing to me, my mouth in particular."
3. Use body language.
Make use of what you have. Facial expressions. Hand signals. Foot signals. Sock puppets.
ex. Thought long and hard about how to complement food in your new language and are still at a loss for words? No matter. Take a big bite. Then smile and chew elaborately. Nod your head, even. Be natural, of course.
4. Noun <----> Verb
Find out early whether, in your new language, it is common to turn nouns into verbs and verbs into nouns. If this is commonplace, consider it a treasure trove of "words." Though many things you say using this technique may include things not in any dictionary, if your pronunciation is good you will almost always be understood. Always remember that your goal is not to sound intelligent. It is to be a communicator in another language.
5. Talk with people.
Studying is good, but speaking with people (talking as well as listening) is better for learning than, say, couching in the not-outside of your place of fooding and sleeping, thumbing through a read, like a never-goes-outsider.
p.s. What kind of outsider do you want to be?
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
Quatre personnes sur la meme moto!
In hindsight it's ironic, given my situation, that I considered it worthy of comment. "Four people on one moped!" Nobody else seemed to notice, or care. Their focus was not on the road, but on the evening ahead. Some, I could tell, were nervous. I was riding with my little sister and my brother's band on the way to the second round of the competition, inside of a vehicle that's somewhere between a van and a perfectly rectangular car. Even without the instruments packed in, we would have been pressed space; I am certain that the number of people exceeded the number of seatbelts. The band has, if I recall correctly, eleven members.
The event lasted for about six hours. Less than half of this was taken by the actual performance of the four competing bands. Each of these musical groups represented a different church congregation. Each group sang three songs, two that were given to them, and a third song that was arranged by the group. For this last song, they were told to use a psalm (I forget which one) as lyrics, and to pair these words with a local melody. In the first round of the competition, this third song was in French. In preparing for the second round, the four remaining groups were asked to translate this psalm into a local language, of which there are many (my 6-year old sister speaks 4 languages). Some band members wound up singing in a language they do not speak.
My brother's band, or, rather, my church's band, won. They deserved it. They were the best.
In December, the group will represent Burkina Faso at the international level of the competition in Cote D'Ivoire (Ivory Coast). There are, I believe, six participating countries. Due to MCC regulations concerning travel to nations without MCC programs, I don't think I'll be able to tag along.
---->
This week, MCC West Africa received approval from Akron for $20,000 of flood relief money we requested at the end of last week.
I've finally come accross some figures concerning the damage caused by the flooding on Sept. 1. My first-hand experience has only been watching my brothers repair their shower room in their courtyard (my French lessons took place in said courtyard). Following is an excerpt from an email I recieved from Eva Mazharenko, SALT Coordinator:
"I have just received an update regarding recent flooding in Burkina Faso, where the rainy season stunned everyone with a twelve hour heavy downpour on September 1, causing reservoir in the capital city to overflow and destroying estimated 24 thousand homes that left about 150,000 people homeless."
Though this an issue apart from the flooding, these numbers indicate about six people per household. And the homes that were destroyed were typically not grand mansions with firm foundations. They were the houses occupied by those without the ability to pay for better housing; they were small homes. Vehicles are not the only thing in Ouagadougou that are often crowded.
The event lasted for about six hours. Less than half of this was taken by the actual performance of the four competing bands. Each of these musical groups represented a different church congregation. Each group sang three songs, two that were given to them, and a third song that was arranged by the group. For this last song, they were told to use a psalm (I forget which one) as lyrics, and to pair these words with a local melody. In the first round of the competition, this third song was in French. In preparing for the second round, the four remaining groups were asked to translate this psalm into a local language, of which there are many (my 6-year old sister speaks 4 languages). Some band members wound up singing in a language they do not speak.
My brother's band, or, rather, my church's band, won. They deserved it. They were the best.
In December, the group will represent Burkina Faso at the international level of the competition in Cote D'Ivoire (Ivory Coast). There are, I believe, six participating countries. Due to MCC regulations concerning travel to nations without MCC programs, I don't think I'll be able to tag along.
---->
This week, MCC West Africa received approval from Akron for $20,000 of flood relief money we requested at the end of last week.
I've finally come accross some figures concerning the damage caused by the flooding on Sept. 1. My first-hand experience has only been watching my brothers repair their shower room in their courtyard (my French lessons took place in said courtyard). Following is an excerpt from an email I recieved from Eva Mazharenko, SALT Coordinator:
"I have just received an update regarding recent flooding in Burkina Faso, where the rainy season stunned everyone with a twelve hour heavy downpour on September 1, causing reservoir in the capital city to overflow and destroying estimated 24 thousand homes that left about 150,000 people homeless."
Though this an issue apart from the flooding, these numbers indicate about six people per household. And the homes that were destroyed were typically not grand mansions with firm foundations. They were the houses occupied by those without the ability to pay for better housing; they were small homes. Vehicles are not the only thing in Ouagadougou that are often crowded.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Goutes le arc-en-ciel
Patiently, we wait in line outside the bakery. It's just after dark, and Levy and Leontine, who I'm now working with at the MCC bureau in Ouagadougou, have been kind enough enough to give me a ride home. We aren't the only members of the daily mass return home who have taken the time to stop on the way to buy bread for the evening meal. This is when many people do some of their shopping.
It might be because the refrigerator count per person in Burkina Faso is significantly lower than that in the United States. It may be the relative lack of big personal vehicles in which to haul large loads of food. It might be simple cultural preferance. Whatever the reasons, shopping for food is done more frequently in urban Burkina Faso than in the U.S.
My diet has revolved around rice, macaroni, cuscus, sweet potatoes, and a thick corn-based paste called to. Most of my meals have had as a main dish one of these foods with a well-seasoned sauce made from spinnach, or onions, or beef with broth, or fish, or mutton. Some meals have included a salad (cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, lettuce, eggs) or a fruit for desert (pineapple, mango, banana, watermelon...). Breakfast has been tea with sugar, and a scrambled-egg sandwich.
My main drink has been water, the drinking of which, given the heat, has become quite a hobby of mine. Another new-found favorite is called degue. Milk, sugar, and bits of millet are stirred together to create a rather ugly mixture that one sips and then chews/swallows. Burkinabe tend to make their sugary drinks violently sweet. The last time I drank degue, I discovered a large undisolved chunk of sugar at the bottom of my glass. I ate it.
Other food stuff:
- Corn (on the cob) is often cooked over coals, and eaten slightly burnt. The taste reminds me of popcorn
- I ate a catepillar a few days ago. They're cooked with onions, or tomatoes, or whatever else. There's a reason I had only one.
- a treat I've had several times is sugar-coated peanuts. Yum.
- My little host sister, Nema, likes the catepillars. She dislikes watermelon. Works out well for us, I guess.
The MCC bureau wasn't untouched by the flooding. A few inches of water covered the floor last Tuesday after the rain. Cleanup included paging through bottom-shelve books and notebooks to help them dry, and dismantling a water-logged computer so that the individual parts could dry. Reassembled, it somehow worked fine.
There is a concert (today, I think) to raise money for the people affected by the flood. As is most often the case, it was the poor who were hit the hardest. Those with mud brick homes for instance, were the most likely to be among the people now living on the floor of local schools. I won't make it to the fund-raising concert. This afternoon, I'm going to another concert to see my big brother Arsene perform with his band. They made it through the last round of the competition. They're good. I'm excited.
It might be because the refrigerator count per person in Burkina Faso is significantly lower than that in the United States. It may be the relative lack of big personal vehicles in which to haul large loads of food. It might be simple cultural preferance. Whatever the reasons, shopping for food is done more frequently in urban Burkina Faso than in the U.S.
My diet has revolved around rice, macaroni, cuscus, sweet potatoes, and a thick corn-based paste called to. Most of my meals have had as a main dish one of these foods with a well-seasoned sauce made from spinnach, or onions, or beef with broth, or fish, or mutton. Some meals have included a salad (cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, lettuce, eggs) or a fruit for desert (pineapple, mango, banana, watermelon...). Breakfast has been tea with sugar, and a scrambled-egg sandwich.
My main drink has been water, the drinking of which, given the heat, has become quite a hobby of mine. Another new-found favorite is called degue. Milk, sugar, and bits of millet are stirred together to create a rather ugly mixture that one sips and then chews/swallows. Burkinabe tend to make their sugary drinks violently sweet. The last time I drank degue, I discovered a large undisolved chunk of sugar at the bottom of my glass. I ate it.
Other food stuff:
- Corn (on the cob) is often cooked over coals, and eaten slightly burnt. The taste reminds me of popcorn
- I ate a catepillar a few days ago. They're cooked with onions, or tomatoes, or whatever else. There's a reason I had only one.
- a treat I've had several times is sugar-coated peanuts. Yum.
- My little host sister, Nema, likes the catepillars. She dislikes watermelon. Works out well for us, I guess.
The MCC bureau wasn't untouched by the flooding. A few inches of water covered the floor last Tuesday after the rain. Cleanup included paging through bottom-shelve books and notebooks to help them dry, and dismantling a water-logged computer so that the individual parts could dry. Reassembled, it somehow worked fine.
There is a concert (today, I think) to raise money for the people affected by the flood. As is most often the case, it was the poor who were hit the hardest. Those with mud brick homes for instance, were the most likely to be among the people now living on the floor of local schools. I won't make it to the fund-raising concert. This afternoon, I'm going to another concert to see my big brother Arsene perform with his band. They made it through the last round of the competition. They're good. I'm excited.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
il pleut (it rains)
The first time I awoke Monday night - early Tuesday morning - It was to the sound of rain pounding the sheet metal roof. I opened my eyes to discover another person in the room with me. Alima, my host family's servant, was searching my room for leaks. She placed a large bucket in the necessarry place, and then exited, closing the door quietly so as not to wake me.
The second time I woke up, the power was out. The fan beide my bed was quiet and still. There was a steady drip from the ceiling into the bucket.
The third time I woke up, I felt a small splash of water on my face. There was a drip above my bed now. Every 90 seconds a large drop would fall, splashing into pieces as it passed through the mosquito net above me, spraying a small area of the sheets with water. I got up, fetched another pail for water, crawled back underneath the net, curled up beside the bucket, went back to sleep.
It was still raining when I ate breakfast. I didn't need the text message from professor Jackie to know that I wouldn't be having French lessons that day. The city shuts down when it's raining. Many venders do their selling outside, but even if most people spent the working day indoors, transportation would be an issue. Only a small fraction of the population owns cars. Everyone else gets around by foot, bicycle, or moped. Judging from the looks I've seen on the faces of people here when it was only sprinkling, biking in the rain can be unpleasant. The only occasion I had to venture outdoors that morning was to go to the bathroom. On the way to the pit toilet, which I found to be nearly full with rain water, I peeked over the courtyard gate. The street was a stream.
It was still raining heavily when I ate lunch. By the time the rain stopped mid-afternoon, it had been pouring nonstop for about twelve hours. The power has cut out in spurts several times in the two weeks I've been here, but never for as long as it was out Tuesday. It wasn't until the power came back on in the evenig that I realized what the rain had meant for other parts of Ouagadougou.
-->
The news showed videos of flash-flooding. A truck windshield-deep in red-brown water. In one video, a man carrying his bicycle through knee-deep water falls, tries to get up, stubles again, and then manages to stand. He continues on empty-handed, leaving his bike behind in the water. There were shots of homes collapsing. And a man driving a hole into the side of his house to let the water drain out. Most striking was a segment about Ouagadougou's main hospital, which also went without power for most of the day. The hospital had to move patients when one of the outside walls collapsed and water began covering the floors. The news showed a shot of a nurse rolling a cart full of equiptment down a hallway, through a couple inches of dirty water. Patients were carried into vehicles and shipped to smaller hospitals.
The rainy season in Burkina lasts frm May through September. This was the first rain of this magnitude my host father, now in his fourties, has ever seen. There is talk of government plans for a runoff thing/canal to prevent this kind of catastrophe in the future.
p.s. sorry to anyone who has been emailing me. Internet problems abound. I'm lucky to somehow have access to this page. Also, I've decided to start including arrows like this: --> before sections of blogs I think you should read. If you don't want to read a bunch of junk, just look for those. They'll point to the imortant stuff. Many of my blogs won't get any arrows. Feel free to skip.
The second time I woke up, the power was out. The fan beide my bed was quiet and still. There was a steady drip from the ceiling into the bucket.
The third time I woke up, I felt a small splash of water on my face. There was a drip above my bed now. Every 90 seconds a large drop would fall, splashing into pieces as it passed through the mosquito net above me, spraying a small area of the sheets with water. I got up, fetched another pail for water, crawled back underneath the net, curled up beside the bucket, went back to sleep.
It was still raining when I ate breakfast. I didn't need the text message from professor Jackie to know that I wouldn't be having French lessons that day. The city shuts down when it's raining. Many venders do their selling outside, but even if most people spent the working day indoors, transportation would be an issue. Only a small fraction of the population owns cars. Everyone else gets around by foot, bicycle, or moped. Judging from the looks I've seen on the faces of people here when it was only sprinkling, biking in the rain can be unpleasant. The only occasion I had to venture outdoors that morning was to go to the bathroom. On the way to the pit toilet, which I found to be nearly full with rain water, I peeked over the courtyard gate. The street was a stream.
It was still raining heavily when I ate lunch. By the time the rain stopped mid-afternoon, it had been pouring nonstop for about twelve hours. The power has cut out in spurts several times in the two weeks I've been here, but never for as long as it was out Tuesday. It wasn't until the power came back on in the evenig that I realized what the rain had meant for other parts of Ouagadougou.
-->
The news showed videos of flash-flooding. A truck windshield-deep in red-brown water. In one video, a man carrying his bicycle through knee-deep water falls, tries to get up, stubles again, and then manages to stand. He continues on empty-handed, leaving his bike behind in the water. There were shots of homes collapsing. And a man driving a hole into the side of his house to let the water drain out. Most striking was a segment about Ouagadougou's main hospital, which also went without power for most of the day. The hospital had to move patients when one of the outside walls collapsed and water began covering the floors. The news showed a shot of a nurse rolling a cart full of equiptment down a hallway, through a couple inches of dirty water. Patients were carried into vehicles and shipped to smaller hospitals.
The rainy season in Burkina lasts frm May through September. This was the first rain of this magnitude my host father, now in his fourties, has ever seen. There is talk of government plans for a runoff thing/canal to prevent this kind of catastrophe in the future.
p.s. sorry to anyone who has been emailing me. Internet problems abound. I'm lucky to somehow have access to this page. Also, I've decided to start including arrows like this: --> before sections of blogs I think you should read. If you don't want to read a bunch of junk, just look for those. They'll point to the imortant stuff. Many of my blogs won't get any arrows. Feel free to skip.
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