The desk drawers of my brain

There are three language drawers in my brain. The first drawer has a bottom panel with many holes cut out of it. If I put a word in there, it quickly drops out. These are words I just heard and repeated ten times. A second drawer has words securely stashed away. In a third drawer, the bottom panel is warped, and though words drop out, I can retrieve them quickly. I cannot explain how words from these last two drawers are sorted and distributed, with one exception: words associated with a moment of extreme emotion.

After a month and a half in Tanzania, I went for yet another walk in the village and stopped at a fresh fruit and vegetable stand with a small crowd of about ten people. Both children and adults seemed to be passing the time visiting, and I interrupted by asking the woman behind the counter if she had any cookies, which was what I really wanted. I’m often surprised by what happens so I was willing to be surprised again. But no, they didn’t have any cookies. So I started asking the small crowd the names of the fruits and vegetables displayed.

Having people teach me Swahili words seems to be engaging – in two seconds I can have an entire room focused on teaching me every word they know. I cannot imagine Americans being this generous with a foreigner, but the Tanzanians have abundant generosity when it comes to teaching their language. I had actually been introduced to the names of the fruits and vegetables in front of me, but they’d all fallen out of the drawer with the holes in it. Having rejected the produce seller by asking for something she clearly didn’t have, I thought I’d at least make a gesture toward kindness or something like it. So I started reciting, once again, tomato (nyanya), carrot (caroti), cabbage (cabbagi), cucumbers (matango), and orange (chungwa).

Let me explain that I always get the word for “fruit” (matunda) and “orange” mixed up because at some critical point in my Swahili acquisition, whoever was teaching me at that moment used the word “fruit” for orange and I didn’t learn until later that “orange” was something else. From left to right on the shelf in front of me, I reviewed the carrot, cabbage, etc, and got to the orange. I fumbled around in my brain for an approximation of “matunda” which mysteriously shuffled with “matango” and came up with “matako.”

The group erupted in gales of laughter, and then I realized I’d given the word for “buttocks.” Faced with a group seizing with laughter, a group who knew I knew what I’d said because I can’t hide anything, I had no words in my head, all three drawers dumped out. So I shook my head and walked away, my face as red as the nyanya, and they were still laughing when I disappeared around the corner. And now I have a few more words added to the secure drawer.

Hanging on to the rope

In the midst of learning greetings, I’ve watched how Tanzanians communicate physically. Whenever I make a joke, someone not only throws back their head with laughter, but they also raise their hand to slap mine. The raised hand seems to mean that the person laughing acknowledges that the joke was a good one, and the joker receives the appreciation by putting out the palm, and the whole thing becomes a physical exchange. It looks like a horizontal high-five, so I figured out the response quickly. It was either that or have some other part of me slapped.

This week I happened upon a colleague named Ebenezer who was standing in front of the administration building waiting for the electricity to return. We exchanged pleasantries, and I don’t remember Ebenezer’s joke, but I laughed heartily and suddenly my hand was slapping Ebenezer’s. It startled me, finding Ebenezer’s hand under mine and then realizing that I must’ve done that raise-the-hand thing without thinking.

Unlike the hand thing, the verbal part of learning to communicate has been tedious. First, let me say I only know one language fluently (English). I took a year of German in high school, a year of Spanish in college, and promptly forgot 99% of what I had learned through no fault of my teachers. Once again, I’m starting from scratch with Kiswahili, acquiring basic greetings and responses, and as many nouns and a few adjectives that my brain will take. But the basic greetings still feel like a stylized dance. If someone offers “How are you?” I can respond with “I’m fine.” On my walks down the road, I mentally rehearse “How are you this morning?” or “How are you today?” or “How are you za guaco?” I still don’t know what “za guaco” means, but when I tack it onto a sentence, people say they’re fine.

I remember certain words out of necessity. The word “wait” came in handy this past week as I’ve been proctoring semester exams. I needed the word “wait” when a student tried to exit to the bathroom without signing out. Students had to wait before they could begin taking the exam. I also witnessed a young boy yell to a driver to wait—Subiri! Subiri!—so that a car passenger who had just disembarked could retrieve something from the car.

This initial stage of language acquisition reminds me of learning to water ski, way back in time when my body was elastic. In the cold Minnesota lake water, I strained to control two long skis bobbing on the ends of my legs and at the same time untangle my head or arm out of the rope. Meanwhile, some grown-up was holding me up by my life jacket far enough out of the water so that I didn’t have to think about how I would breathe underwater as well. Usually the grownup gave advice—“Relax your knees! Keep your head up! Bend your legs! Lean back! Not too far! Don’t pull too hard on the rope!”

There was no way I was going to hang on to that advice. After I yelled “hit it!” through chattering teeth to the boat driver, I hung on to the rope. If I was lucky, I could manage an excruciating 35 degree angle for a while and then crash. One time I forgot to let go of the rope and found my nostrils thoroughly irrigated. Eventually I actually emerged from the water to a vertical position, defying all likelihood that it would ever happen.

For 3 ½ weeks, I’ve been dreading the likelihood that I’ll never get beyond, “How are you za guaco?” But at the last part of this week, something happened that seemed to shift me a little more out of the water and closer to a 45 degree angle. I, along with about nine other college personnel, took a trip to town in the College’s Land Cruiser, driven by Haji. Haji had made the first stop, two people leapt off, and the vehicle began to roll away with the back door swinging wide open. Mr. Priva, who is no spring chicken, sat on the end, and I dreaded watching him try to retrieve the door in a vehicle bouncing down a road paved with boulders. Without thinking, I yelled, “Wait! Wait! Subiri!” There it was, that moment I emerged a little from the water, defying all odds. Even better, the group recognized the miracle and applauded—they too are tired of “How are you za guaco?”

Linguistic note ONLY to English teachers and grammar tsars: I realize the second sentence in this post violates the pronoun-antecedent agreement rule. One of the most valuable things I learned from a graduate course in linguistics is that the prescriptive rules of language are arbitrary. Second, the rules of language constantly change. Back in the day, we would’ve said, “…someone not only throws back his head with laughter, but he also raises…” Gradually custom has changed so that girls and women are no longer excluded in sentences with singular pronouns. I heartily support that. However, sentences with clunky she/he constructions drive me nuts. I could’ve avoided the clunky she/he by using the plural, as in “people not only throw their head back with laughter…” but I wanted to emphasize the one-to-one exchange in the hand slap. Therefore, I have purposefully used the singular “someone” with the plural “their,” hoping that the rules will change. They will change, not by any announcement (at least, not that I know of), but by frequent use. Perhaps I can convince you to keep it up.

Where is the toilet?

I leave for Tanzania in a week, and at the moment, I’m envisioning some “what ifs” that take on bizarre dimensions the more I imagine. What if I arrive at the Kilimanjaro Airport and need to use the restroom before I find my Tanzanian host? Although many people in Tanzania speak English, not everyone does. My Swahili dictionary says “toilet” is choo. I suppose I could tap someone on the arm, and say “choo choo.” Even better, I could say “choo choo” while I cross my legs and wince. Somehow this lacks dignity.
Even if I manage to get across my question with or without my dignity in tact, will I be able to understand the answer? In Teach Yourself Swahili, the taxi driver (teksi dereva) in chapter two conveniently gives three directions: left, right, and straight ahead. But what if the choo is around the corner, through the alley by the Kwik Shop after two traffic lights, and don’t mind the chickens in the road? How do I communicate to someone that they have only three choices for an answer? Multiple choice works on paper, but in an airport when I have to go to the bathroom? So on the airplane, I’ll write kulia, kushoto, and moja kwa moja and then I can point to each term, raise my eyebrows after I point, and move on to the next term.
That should do it.
Now I’ll have to figure out how to get back to the airport, having passed the two traffic lights, the Kwik Shop, and the chickens in the road.