If you ever decide to step foot out your
front door and dance to the rhythm of another place, perhaps you’ll notice as I
have how your ability to communicate with the people around you not only
completely effects your opinions and perceptions of that place,but also the
culture that brings it alive. Just think
about your life in your hometown, the place where you feel the most
comfortable, the most like yourself. Think about the hundreds of seemingly
inconsequential interactions that you engage in on a daily basis without
hesitation. You can make small talk. You can name drop. You can argue. You can
gossip. You can fight. You can defend. You can understand and express humor.
You can negotiate social awkwardness. Most importantly you can pick up on those
amazingly subtle social cues in the first place. When I refer to social cues, I
am talking about reading in-between the lines – between what is literally said
and what is actually meant. A prime USA example? How about when someone says
“alright, I’m gonna have to let you go” during a pause in dialogue – what that
person really means is that they want you to
stop talking and allow them to
continue on with their day. But of course, since social etiquette mandates that
that type of social ineptitude will earn you the a#$hole/mega b%tch status, you
have to find some socially acceptable polite way to say the same exact thing.
The nuances to language are fascinating aren’t they? AND additionally very much
reflect the cultural values of a society. And so, most of the time at least, we
conform to the social expectations given to us.
That being said, what continues to surprise
me most is how language, and my competency (or often the lack thereof) continues
to change ME – my identity, my personality, and how I see myself in the scheme of things. Just think about having to operate everyday
in a language that you only began learning four months ago… An appropriate
equivalency? Imagine reverting back to the communication ability of a four year
old. Expressions revolve around the
basics. “No, I don’t like this” “Yes, I want that please,” and generally a
bunch of garbled rambling. And while perhaps I’m selling myself a bit short (I
have in reality improved A LOT since arriving at site and am navigating daily
interactions just fine), I can easily find myself in over my head, very very quickly. Really, my speaking
ability betrays my listening ability – in other words, I can speak well in
Portuguese, but of course, a primary component of being conversational is
having adept listening skills – to understand the comments made and respond to
them, as opposed to monologuing back and forth (a rather boring interaction
right?). But when I begin rattling off my Portuguese, it is usually is returned
with equal velocity – and I’m left stunned and trying to pick up the pieces.
Usually in such a scenario, I just make a wild guess. Most of the time I get
lucky and guess right – as language can to some degree be instinctual – and can
carry on the conversation. However, I think many times, I guess wrong, and it
can be funny albeit sometimes embarrassing or incredibly awkward. It’d be like
someone asking me if I wanted to hang out later, and me responding with “Yes,
it’s a beautiful day today!” It just makes no sense, and makes me look like a
total idiot. When I sense this danger, I usually resort to dropping a huge grin
after my response, which tends to make the person I’m conversing with feel
sorry for me, and patch up my social awkwardness for me, either by changing the
subject or patiently repeating themselves until I get it. The result is as
follows:
 |
| Exhibit A: What a Mozambican sees while conversing with their local Peace Corps Volunteer. All smiles and enthusiasm, perhaps to a fault. Ex. Sure! I'd love to... [insert here whatever phrase was spoken previously in reflexive form, also add vigorous nodding of the head]” |
 |
| Exhibit B What their Peace Corps Volunteer is actually thinking/feeling during a conversation or school staff meeting
Stages of interaction: Bottom left – the “Internal strife, oh-shit-why-are-they-talking-so-fast!?” face; Top left – the “oh-here-we-go-again-now-they’re-talking-in-Chitswa-I’m-SO-screwed!” face; Top right – “Are they done yet?? I-lost-the-conversation-topic-an-hour-ago!!” face; Bottom right: “WHAT-IS-GOING-ON-HELP-ME-ESCAPE-AHHHH!!”
|
The fact that my ability to express myself
has changed me more than my ideas regarding the places I go perhaps seems
obvious. After all, a place rarely “changes” for the foreigner (unless we’re
talking forms of neo-colonialism here). But it floors me repeatedly just how
much I’ve taken the effortlessness of navigating everyday life in the States
for granted. After all, English is my first language and the “official”
language of my country. In school, my teachers taught using the language I spoke
at home. At work, I could raise concerns using a language I was comfortable
with, with a boss who spoke the same language.
Essentially, I have always been able to express myself to a 110%
capacity. Having the ability to express myself thus only left me with the
choice of engaging.
This offers a wonderful contrast to the
challenges of navigating life in a country whose “official” language is
Portuguese but also has about 15+ local tribal languages. From Chitswa to Chopi, Mozambicans from neighboring
provinces of Inhambane and Sofalafor example struggle to communicate even with
each other! Imagine, for example, if
Washingtonians and Oregonians had different state languages! Imagine how
difficult even the most basic interactions and transactions would be, just by
crossing the Columbia river! How much
more ridged and exclusionary arbitrarily constructed borders would feel! Thus,
by mandating Portuguese as the national language, Portuguese has become the lingua franca of Mozambique, providing a
common language necessary for national unity and development. But of course,
there are always ripple effects from such impositions – one of which I have
witnessed during the last few weeks. Students at government supported schools
throughout Mozambique are prohibited from speaking their “lingua locale” or
local language during class or anywhere on school grounds. And, while the
national hymn narrates of Mozambique’s rebirth “pierda a pierda” (stone for
stone) after the horrors of colonial rule and decades of civil war, one has to
appreciate the tragic irony of adopting the language of yesterdays conquerors
for tomorrow’s progressives and revolutionaries. Foucault’s theories of
language and power couldn’t be ringing any truer…
But anyhow, language ultimately effects your
ability to engage with the community and culture around you. That’s why Peace
Corps emphasizes language fluency as the primary strategy for staying safe
during two years of service. The more language ability you have, not only can
you better negotiate any type of scenario or challenge, but you can forge
relationships in your community with people that will end up looking out for
you. Essentially, language fluency becomes your biggest safety net as a
volunteer.
So, how has my language acquisition affected
my own integration in Mapinhane?
I’ll say this. The days that I excel in
communicating with my friends, neighbors, colleagues, and students are my best
days. I feel ecstatically happy, energetic, and actually crave and seek out
more conversations. The days that I find myself struggling to express myself,
are the ones where I feel the most depressed – almost incapacitatingly so –
especially when Mozambicans in their frank “tell-it-like-it-is” way tell me
that I don’t know Portuguese and that I should be better already. It’s at that
point where I emotionally shut down, I suddenly become exhausted, and I
sometimes even feel angry about not being able to correct assumptions, andsay
what I really think. I often wish I
could go back and ask those critics to imagine getting dropped off in the
United States and trying to learn English in only four months!In any case, I
can’t emphasis enough the linear correlation between my Daily Happiness Index
and my linguistic agility. On days where my confidence is high and I’m feeling
bold enough to try talking about new subjects and ask questions, the rewards
are exponential to the risk AND tend to boost my confidence even more,
encouraging me to continue pushing my linguistic comfort zones. However, the
days where I feel inept or unable to express myself or worse, can’t negotiate a
situation that makes me feel really vulnerable and uncomfortable (ex.
aggressively flirtatious men or taunting, disrespectful students) can quickly
make my attitude toward Integration in general spiral down in the other
direction. As I wrote in my journal back
in October during the first month of training:
“There are parts – large parts – of me that I’ll never be able to effectively share with my host-family and community. When you’re in another culture, learning other language, it’s like you adopt multiple personalities… and all of them are little pieces of you but never wholly you. It’s only the “you” that you have the ability to express and if you lack the skills or the cultural context, you end up lacking large parts of your identity.”
It strikes me just how true these original
impressions remain.
And so, as I enter into my six month living
in Mozambique (holy cow!), I remain an American woman in Mozambique, everyday
working toward that ultimate dream of belonging – whatever that is. And while I
will never become Mozambican (nor do I want to), language is the tool that can
deliver me to the closest equivalent. Whether in Portuguese or Chitswa, more
than ever, I want to have a voice. I want to have a greater role to play in my
community than just teaching. And I’ll have to fight and work for my “voice”
harder than I’ve ever had to in my life.
What a thrill!
