This is a special report on the communication issues one has to deal with while living in a different country. And since we all know that communication is the basis for living comfortably among other people, we all know that it can get messy sometimes.
You may not realize that even though I’m in an English speaking country that there is definite communication breakdown. I dare not venture to say it’s worse than being completely surrounded by a different language, but it certainly creates a lot of different issues, especially when the whole country has been learning English wrong for quite a while. Then again who am I to actually say what’s right or wrong? Just because I’m good at English doesn’t mean I know everything about it. Anyway, just so you can experience the confusion that comes with accents and regional dialects of English when it’s mixed with native tribal words, I’ve written some observations down for you.
(1) Their questions do not go up at the end, they sound just as much like statements as statements do, so often times when they are asking you something you might not be aware that it’s a question until the 3rd or 4th time.
(2) “Taken” means to them what “eaten” means to us.
(3) I don’t have to adapt such cultural ways of talking like “Ahaaa”, the new suffix –o, and their obsession with “ok, ok!” but it makes things more fun, and more understandable for them. I also adapt an accent most of the time because they honestly hardly can understand me otherwise.
(4) They are often very vague. Maybe they do this on purpose to make conversations longer, but I don’t quite appreciate it like that. “I have taken this” as answer to a question will be shortened to “I have” which is something we are accustomed to, but those of us who are really proper generally add a “yes” or something akin to that. What’s confusing about this is that you might ask them if they have something and instead of saying “yes” (which is a pretty simple answer, by the way) they’ll say “I have.” You have what? Do you really have? I understand… but just finish the sentence! I haven’t blown up about this yet though so don’t worry.
(5) “I’m coming” means they are coming back… sometime. Could be a few minutes, or as soon as they possibly could within the next hour—like Americans would interpret it—or it could be next morning, or a even whole day away. No joke. One time, we were waiting outside a locked building for an hour and a half for a guy who was “coming.” A classic example of being very vague. You might say that this isn’t that bad, because sometimes things like this happen with those of us who use English as our first language too, but the difference is that this is as far as they go in explaining it to you. So if you ask them when they’re coming back, you’ll only confuse them and they’ll repeat “I’m coming.” Which leads me to my next point.
(6) Being direct is not an option. This may sound similar to point 4, “They are often very vague,” but it’s different. They will be indirect to the point of pain. It’s so weird to be listening to a normal conversation about families or something and then finding out when one party leaves that someone got roped into doing something. Really? I thought it was just a conversation about life.
(7) Their scale of well-being is different than ours. “Wonderful,” “awful,” and “awesome” all mean the same thing: full of wonder or awe – often times not in a good way. “Fine” is the best compliment or grade of anything, “Okay” is next, and then “very good,” “good,” “not so good,” then “manageable.” If someone asks you how your night was and you replied with something like, “horrible,” they would probably be so confused they’d be speechless, which probably wouldn’t add to your mood so well since you just had a bad night, and now you had to explain it, so just don’t do it.
(8) Not greeting someone is a terrible insult. And greeting them with the wrong greeting isn’t too fantastic either, but I think they’re ok with me messing up because I’m oyinbo (foreigner aka anyone not dark skinned), I don’t really understand their culture, and they get to laugh at me in the process, and they dearly love to laugh. The reason I say “greet” instead of “saying hello” to everyone is because that’s not really considered a proper greeting. More proper would be “good morning” for any hour before 12:00pm, “good afternoon” from the hours 12:00pm-4:00pm, and “good evening” for any time after 4:00pm, which can be switched with “good night” (even at 4:00) as long as you won’t be seeing that person for the rest of the day. If they are working, if they are eating, if you are eating, if you haven’t seen them since yesterday, or if you haven’t seen them since yesterday when they were working, if you see them once in the morning and then later on in the morning when they are now working, there will be a different greeting for each one, and then many, many more beyond that. So depending on your situation and the other person’s you could easily exchange at least four or five equally appropriate greetings before you start talking about anything.
(9) That being said, once you start talking about something—if it’s not already a part of your greeting—you ask the other person how their family is, and their own health, and their night, if you haven’t seen them since yesterday, and maybe even their home. Then you can start talking about whatever it is you were going to talk about. But even if you weren’t going to talk about anything, those things would be appreciated by the greet-ee each time.
(10) The suffix “ –o” I referred to in (4) is actually the Yoruba word (word, not letter, mind you) for “you”. It is the nice way to say things because it makes whatever it is more personal. For example E kaaro means “good morning” but to be nice, properly you would say E kaaro o, which to me sounds the same, but to them, apparently not. No one cares anyway, as long as there’s an “o” sound at the end of that, you’re good, but I like to draw it out an extra 1/2 a second to really get the feeling that I’m Nigerian.
(11) “Well done” is not a gradient of cooked meat. In fact, if someone happens to be cooking meat, there’s really only one way to have it: the way they give it to you, because if you refuse a gift, that is very very bad. Anyway, “well done” is what you say to someone while they are working. So if you are at all eating meat, you might try saying “well done” to the person cooking it but the only thing you will get is E she o! (which means thank you), and a bite-size piece of some sort of blackened muscle.
(12) The terms used when referring to someone are very important and they have specific guidelines. If you use the wrong one, it’s like getting called a child when you’re 13 and you scream out, “I’m a teenager!” except that everyone feels that way, even without the hormonal expectations that would cause such a grudge from a 13 year old.
Baby – Child who has not started school yet (keep in mind that they generally start at age 3).
Girl or Boy – Female or male child who is within the proper ages to be in any schooling before secondary school (equivalent of middle and high school together).
Auntie or Uncle – Anyone except a boy or girl if you don’t know them, or the term students use toward teachers.
Sister or Brother – Anyone if you’re religious, more seriously those that are the same town or tribe as you, and quite literally those that are born from one of the same parents as you.
Ma or Sir – Woman or man of higher standing than Auntie or Uncle. A visitor would be “Ma” or “Sir”, and more generally if you knew they were over a certain age, or if they have lots of children.
Mama or Mommy, or Baba or Daddy – General terms used toward people you don’t know but you know are older than you. More respectful than Auntie or Uncle
Mama _____ or Baba _____ (insert their child’s name) – What you would call someone in place of a name, if they so wished, generally used among friends or good acquaintances. Especially used (at least by oyinbo) when they have a particularly difficult name to pronounce, or among everyone when they have a child of high standing somehow. For example, someone that works for Belen is called Mama Twins, because she has twins, and twins are a very special thing in the Yoruba tribe. Or Belen is referred to as Mama Joshua or Mama Michaela because everyone recognizes little oyinbo children.
(13) Back to the literary side of things, I should mention that they don’t know how to pronounce “h” or “th”. This creates a series of problems with me as a teacher. One day, as I was covering homonyms (for those of you who don’t know: words that mean different things but sound the same), I was writing down this huge list mostly to just cover “to”, “two” & “too”, and “they’re”, “their” & “there”. But then I came upon “here”, “hear” and, according to the class, “ear” and “hair”. Homonyms for “it” is “hit”, “is” is “his”, and “at” is “hat”. Also the “th” sound is pronounced “d” if that even, otherwise it’s just “t”. So “that” is pronounced either “dat” or “tat” most of the time. Kids are hard enough to understand anyway, so when you add in the fact that they pronounce basic words differently and that they have a much different word choice for many things, conversations should be near impossible. So sometimes students will be telling me things that I cannot wrap my mind around to figure out at all, and some Yoruba someone will have to interpret. Just the other day I had this conversation with a student:
Student: “Auntie, they’ve took my heuschma.” (pronounced heuschma)
Me: “What?”
Student: “They’ve took my heuschma.”
Me: “What is that?”
Student: “My heuschma.”
Me: “You have a heuschma? I don’t know what that is.”
Student: “My heuschma.”
Me: “What is a heuschma?”
Student: “Thank you, Auntie.” (runs off)
Honestly I still do not know whatever a heuschma might be, and even less do I understand how I helped him in any way.
(14) Finally, the last thing I have to say about Nigerian English (at least for now), is that they love to talk about food. Since interesting conversation has to include topics that both sides understand, often times the conversations will be boiled down to weather, religion, teaching, and food. Since we get tired of talking about the weather, teaching doesn’t change much and we do it all day anyway, and religion is just about the same, food is the most talked about subject between me and my Nigerian friends, aka, the teachers. The only reason I really mention this is because if you ever happen to come to Nigeria, and more specifically a place where the Yoruba tribe is, make sure you like spicy food because the first, most memorable, and most confusing conversations all have to do with food, and since you haven’t tried their food, or don’t know what it was called if you have, they will bring you some to eat. Then you will end up like me last quarter, eating Nigerian food every morning and getting addicted to the simple, fattening ways of palm oil, chili peppers, beans and rice (or at least having stomach issues from it).
So I hope you have learned a little bit about Nigerian communication, and possibly their culture, and of course, what I have to deal with every day. It sure has been fun to report.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Snakes, Thunderstorms, School and More Malaria
I’m writing this on the 28th of February, though I don’t think I’ll be able to post it until much later since I’ve hardly been able to get on the Internet lately at all.
And just now, so recent that I had to stop writing this blog in order to move my computer away from the window, was the first thunderstorm I’ve experienced here, and wow was it magnificent. I had to go outside just so I could stand in the awesome wind and feel the fear of God. But then it got really dusty and I heard thunder, so I ran inside to see if I could jar my slated windows free of their rusty confines in order to close them. Anyway, it was fantastic – I love God’s nature so much! (Especially when it leans in the opposite direction of the 90° ish kind of weather.)
So that’s good news, though I’m not sure rainy season has really started, because it’s supposed to start by the earliest in April. If it’s not time yet, everyone’s fooled… well at least the snakes, because they’re out already and they’re not supposed to come out until the rainy season’s started. I’ve already seen what I think were two vipers, and another two dead snakes on the road. Along with this surprise of realizing there were snakes here, I found out all three kinds are deadly poisonous! This, of course, was after my first encounter with a snake, in which I happened to be about three feet away from.
Another interesting tidbit about me is that I came down with malaria about a month ago. At first I had no idea that what I had was that bad, it kept getting just a little bit worse it seemed, but there’s no getting around the fact that I really felt awful during the days preceding my blood test. When I told Richard (my boyfriend) he told me to tell Belen right away, but I didn’t think anything was bad enough yet. Finally one day after the symptoms had seemed to get a little bit worse, he again asked me to tell her and I had a really strong feeling that I probably should. She said that I definitely should get a blood test because malaria just isn’t something you play around with. That night I found out I had it, and started treatment right away though I didn’t feel any better at all the next day, instead I seemed to feel worse. The next day, though, I felt like someone had siphoned a bag of sand from my bones overnight, and suddenly walking wasn’t so hard. So the only way I knew how bad I felt was in comparison to after my medicine kicked in.
One thing I didn’t understand right away was that what I had was the same malaria that could turn into cerebral malaria – the same kind I talked about in my previous blog – and I didn’t really find this out until last week. Bad communication led me to believe that I had a lesser kind that wasn’t as big a deal as the one that Michaela and Joshua and Belen all got. But that’s not true because if I hadn’t treated it, it could have easily turned into cerebral malaria. Apparently it was malaria month because all four of us got it within four weeks. Unfortunately Michaela had it again just this week, and scared us all by being bedridden for 4 days without eating. It seems their malaria medicine isn’t working so well, but I think mine is fine, except that I had been a few hours off of my daily one a few times and only when I take it absolutely on-the-dot is it 99% effective. Anyway, I’m better now, and Michaela seems to being doing much better once again.
So the big story for this blog is as follows:
I was put directly into a teaching position when the new year started for grades 3-5 because the English teacher quit and they didn’t know until the first day back at school. Apparently she didn’t tell them, though she told me, and I wasn’t aware of the sincerity of the situation. I was wondering all Christmas break if they were going to ask me to teach so I could at least prepare something, but they never did so I assumed they had someone. When I found out they didn’t have a teacher, I had extremely mixed feelings. At first I was thrilled to be doing something so involved finally, thinking, “Surely this is why God has led me here!” But it didn’t take long to be not so thrilled. Either the indirect nature of their culture or the awkward situation as a whole led them to refuse to tell me outright that I was the teacher. This whole time I was thinking that no one would come at this time of the year that would be good enough for the Seventh-day Adventist system, since it is known as one of the best school systems here in Nigeria. I underestimated the amount of unemployment apparently, because within 3 or 4 weeks there was another teacher. I had no idea anything would happen that fast and I was trying to mentally prepare myself for teaching these kids English without having taken any teaching classes, owning a curriculum, or even having a teacher’s textbook to use. Most of all, I was worried about discipline because the system they use is the method of the stick, and I couldn’t get around the feeling of not wanting to beat kids. But these 4 weeks of thinking I was the teacher for these kids for the rest of the year forced me to come up with either a new discipline system or a better reason for not hitting these kids than “because I can’t.” I tried a new system and after a few days I could tell it wasn’t going to work, but I thought that a lot of things need more time than a few days… so I waited a week and lost my patience with that idea. I can honestly say without a doubt that that was the most stressful week of my life. When you have 30-40 kids in one classroom that don’t fully understand your English, can’t hear you because your voice is dying from yelling too much, and are taking advantage of the fact that you don’t carry a stick around, you will truly know the meaning of stress. I was immediately pushed to make a better decision on why I disliked beating kids so much. I now know why I obtained such a strong moral feeling against “beating” because I naturally value human life to a great degree, and grew up in a society that is very against child abuse. Maybe I forgot to mention something that I assume everyone realizes, and that is that the beatings they go through here are so much more severe than any I’ve seen before. So if they were to take one of the teachers here and put them in an American classroom, after a few days they’d be arrested. I looked at their punishment with sadness and disgust in my days before teaching, but then the teacher they had wasn’t as bad on them as the others I had to deal with later either. Then I really saw the true nature of things, and how the kids would mock me for not beating them, laugh at the beatings of other kids, and master lying to avoid punishment at a severe degree. One time the class of 40 was being so bad that I asked them if they wanted to be beaten. Minus four or five, all of them said yes enthusiastically and started flocking to me, “waiting” for their punishment. I just stared, dumbstruck at what to do, thinking to myself, “These kids are sick in the head”, so I made them kneel for the rest of the class (another form of punishment) even if they didn’t do anything bad. Another teacher walked by, saw that I was having issues, and went to get a large stick to beat them for me. As he beat each of them, some would move and get hit on the head, and one girl started bleeding from right next to her eye. They were all crying loudly, and so when he left I asked them, “Didn’t you want to be beat?” And their reply? Laughter. Instantly, their reply went from loud and dramatic wailing to laughter, all of them faking their distress, except the few that didn’t want to be beat and the ones who were bleeding. After this point, I realized the true nature of the way things worked as far as discipline and struggled with my methods a little bit longer, than came to the conclusion that I had to deal with a discipline they understood. I can still remember the first time I hit a little boy, and how it felt. I felt like my hand was detached from my body afterwards, like someone else had done it and not me. Unfortunately I had to do it more, but the class was shocked enough that I did anything at all, that they were quiet for a few more days on their own without me doing anything. In the rest of the time, I had to hit less than a dozen kids to keep them to a somewhat manageable degree, and since the new teacher came I haven’t hardly hit more than two or three.
Now, with the new teacher keeping peace, there are quite a few moments during my school day when I can actually hear myself, and it’s a relief. Instead of teaching, I am now an assistant again, just grading the stacks of paper for all but 20 minutes of my 5 hours, and occasionally getting the chance to teach them something again. I definitely appreciate teaching more now that they respect, or at least pretend to respect me. But it still has its issues especially because they still cannot understand my English very well, and they fail to tell me when they have questions, turning in their papers without doing anything on it at all. Anytime I can, I’ll work with some students one-on-one if I see an opportunity to fix something really important or that I know how to handle. These are the most rewarding moments, along with knowing they finally understand me after laughing at some of my jokes. I like making them even if they don’t, because then I have a chance to laugh anyway.
I realize more than ever that all of my most stressful times have been times I’ve pushed myself away from God, and all of my most joyous times have been when I’ve realized this and gone running back to him. This trip has included so many of each of those moments, to the extreme, and I still passionately dislike the heat, and ardently miss my boyfriend, family and friends. So if anyone asks me how my trip has been, however am I supposed to respond?
I guess don’t have anything else to say other than, “God has led me through it.”
And just now, so recent that I had to stop writing this blog in order to move my computer away from the window, was the first thunderstorm I’ve experienced here, and wow was it magnificent. I had to go outside just so I could stand in the awesome wind and feel the fear of God. But then it got really dusty and I heard thunder, so I ran inside to see if I could jar my slated windows free of their rusty confines in order to close them. Anyway, it was fantastic – I love God’s nature so much! (Especially when it leans in the opposite direction of the 90° ish kind of weather.)
So that’s good news, though I’m not sure rainy season has really started, because it’s supposed to start by the earliest in April. If it’s not time yet, everyone’s fooled… well at least the snakes, because they’re out already and they’re not supposed to come out until the rainy season’s started. I’ve already seen what I think were two vipers, and another two dead snakes on the road. Along with this surprise of realizing there were snakes here, I found out all three kinds are deadly poisonous! This, of course, was after my first encounter with a snake, in which I happened to be about three feet away from.
Another interesting tidbit about me is that I came down with malaria about a month ago. At first I had no idea that what I had was that bad, it kept getting just a little bit worse it seemed, but there’s no getting around the fact that I really felt awful during the days preceding my blood test. When I told Richard (my boyfriend) he told me to tell Belen right away, but I didn’t think anything was bad enough yet. Finally one day after the symptoms had seemed to get a little bit worse, he again asked me to tell her and I had a really strong feeling that I probably should. She said that I definitely should get a blood test because malaria just isn’t something you play around with. That night I found out I had it, and started treatment right away though I didn’t feel any better at all the next day, instead I seemed to feel worse. The next day, though, I felt like someone had siphoned a bag of sand from my bones overnight, and suddenly walking wasn’t so hard. So the only way I knew how bad I felt was in comparison to after my medicine kicked in.
One thing I didn’t understand right away was that what I had was the same malaria that could turn into cerebral malaria – the same kind I talked about in my previous blog – and I didn’t really find this out until last week. Bad communication led me to believe that I had a lesser kind that wasn’t as big a deal as the one that Michaela and Joshua and Belen all got. But that’s not true because if I hadn’t treated it, it could have easily turned into cerebral malaria. Apparently it was malaria month because all four of us got it within four weeks. Unfortunately Michaela had it again just this week, and scared us all by being bedridden for 4 days without eating. It seems their malaria medicine isn’t working so well, but I think mine is fine, except that I had been a few hours off of my daily one a few times and only when I take it absolutely on-the-dot is it 99% effective. Anyway, I’m better now, and Michaela seems to being doing much better once again.
So the big story for this blog is as follows:
I was put directly into a teaching position when the new year started for grades 3-5 because the English teacher quit and they didn’t know until the first day back at school. Apparently she didn’t tell them, though she told me, and I wasn’t aware of the sincerity of the situation. I was wondering all Christmas break if they were going to ask me to teach so I could at least prepare something, but they never did so I assumed they had someone. When I found out they didn’t have a teacher, I had extremely mixed feelings. At first I was thrilled to be doing something so involved finally, thinking, “Surely this is why God has led me here!” But it didn’t take long to be not so thrilled. Either the indirect nature of their culture or the awkward situation as a whole led them to refuse to tell me outright that I was the teacher. This whole time I was thinking that no one would come at this time of the year that would be good enough for the Seventh-day Adventist system, since it is known as one of the best school systems here in Nigeria. I underestimated the amount of unemployment apparently, because within 3 or 4 weeks there was another teacher. I had no idea anything would happen that fast and I was trying to mentally prepare myself for teaching these kids English without having taken any teaching classes, owning a curriculum, or even having a teacher’s textbook to use. Most of all, I was worried about discipline because the system they use is the method of the stick, and I couldn’t get around the feeling of not wanting to beat kids. But these 4 weeks of thinking I was the teacher for these kids for the rest of the year forced me to come up with either a new discipline system or a better reason for not hitting these kids than “because I can’t.” I tried a new system and after a few days I could tell it wasn’t going to work, but I thought that a lot of things need more time than a few days… so I waited a week and lost my patience with that idea. I can honestly say without a doubt that that was the most stressful week of my life. When you have 30-40 kids in one classroom that don’t fully understand your English, can’t hear you because your voice is dying from yelling too much, and are taking advantage of the fact that you don’t carry a stick around, you will truly know the meaning of stress. I was immediately pushed to make a better decision on why I disliked beating kids so much. I now know why I obtained such a strong moral feeling against “beating” because I naturally value human life to a great degree, and grew up in a society that is very against child abuse. Maybe I forgot to mention something that I assume everyone realizes, and that is that the beatings they go through here are so much more severe than any I’ve seen before. So if they were to take one of the teachers here and put them in an American classroom, after a few days they’d be arrested. I looked at their punishment with sadness and disgust in my days before teaching, but then the teacher they had wasn’t as bad on them as the others I had to deal with later either. Then I really saw the true nature of things, and how the kids would mock me for not beating them, laugh at the beatings of other kids, and master lying to avoid punishment at a severe degree. One time the class of 40 was being so bad that I asked them if they wanted to be beaten. Minus four or five, all of them said yes enthusiastically and started flocking to me, “waiting” for their punishment. I just stared, dumbstruck at what to do, thinking to myself, “These kids are sick in the head”, so I made them kneel for the rest of the class (another form of punishment) even if they didn’t do anything bad. Another teacher walked by, saw that I was having issues, and went to get a large stick to beat them for me. As he beat each of them, some would move and get hit on the head, and one girl started bleeding from right next to her eye. They were all crying loudly, and so when he left I asked them, “Didn’t you want to be beat?” And their reply? Laughter. Instantly, their reply went from loud and dramatic wailing to laughter, all of them faking their distress, except the few that didn’t want to be beat and the ones who were bleeding. After this point, I realized the true nature of the way things worked as far as discipline and struggled with my methods a little bit longer, than came to the conclusion that I had to deal with a discipline they understood. I can still remember the first time I hit a little boy, and how it felt. I felt like my hand was detached from my body afterwards, like someone else had done it and not me. Unfortunately I had to do it more, but the class was shocked enough that I did anything at all, that they were quiet for a few more days on their own without me doing anything. In the rest of the time, I had to hit less than a dozen kids to keep them to a somewhat manageable degree, and since the new teacher came I haven’t hardly hit more than two or three.
Now, with the new teacher keeping peace, there are quite a few moments during my school day when I can actually hear myself, and it’s a relief. Instead of teaching, I am now an assistant again, just grading the stacks of paper for all but 20 minutes of my 5 hours, and occasionally getting the chance to teach them something again. I definitely appreciate teaching more now that they respect, or at least pretend to respect me. But it still has its issues especially because they still cannot understand my English very well, and they fail to tell me when they have questions, turning in their papers without doing anything on it at all. Anytime I can, I’ll work with some students one-on-one if I see an opportunity to fix something really important or that I know how to handle. These are the most rewarding moments, along with knowing they finally understand me after laughing at some of my jokes. I like making them even if they don’t, because then I have a chance to laugh anyway.
I realize more than ever that all of my most stressful times have been times I’ve pushed myself away from God, and all of my most joyous times have been when I’ve realized this and gone running back to him. This trip has included so many of each of those moments, to the extreme, and I still passionately dislike the heat, and ardently miss my boyfriend, family and friends. So if anyone asks me how my trip has been, however am I supposed to respond?
I guess don’t have anything else to say other than, “God has led me through it.”
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