I came to Tanzania 8 months ago knowing only the most basic Swahili words (thank you, hello), but it is my great desire to learn the language. I took a grammar class (reading/writing based) in the fall and since the New Year I've been working with the GPA approach which focuses on speaking and listening. I spend over 15 hours a week really trying.
On good days, I feel like I am making some real progress. On bad days, like today, I just want to give up.
Our gardener, Ayubu, does not speak any English. He's also very uneducated and so his Swahili isn't readily understandable either. Over the past few months, I've gotten pretty good at the basic pleasantries with him, but once it goes beyond the standard formula, I'm lost.
Several months ago, after I asked him how his family was, he used a whole bunch of words I didn't know. I did understand that he was talking about his wife, and I thought I heard the verb "to go." So like a drowning woman, I grasped on to these words and went with them. "Where is she going?" "How long will she be gone?"
Ayubu is a pretty cheerful fellow and it always appears that he's laughing at me and my attempts to talk to him, but by the level of merriment I could tell that my interpretation was incorrect. He then tried to explain the situation to me in different words. This time I picked up on the word "key" (or so I thought) and started a dialogue about "Do you need the key?"
Eventually, after many failed sentences and awkward pauses, I learned that he was actually saying that his wife was going to have a baby! In August! Wow, great news!! And it gave me a new topic of conversation that I've been milking for 2 months: "How's your wife feeling?"
Today, after asking how his holidays were and how his family was, he responded that God is helping them and they are well, "but"...he started talking about the baby, used the verb "finish," talked about "yesterday" and "hospital." I thought, since the baby was due in August, that his wife had miscarried or had a stillborn.
Devastated for him, I tried to express how sorry I was. I was struck by the fact that he still seemed in very good spirits and I spent the morning reflecting on how difficult life is in Africa for moms and babies. And then our house helper, Ray, (who speaks much clearer Swahili) came into the house with a big smile and told me that Ayubu's wife had a baby boy last night, named Imani (faith).
I got straight A's in Spanish! I have a great memory! Why, oh why, is this so difficult?
Truly, I just want to quit trying. But I know that if I quit it is guaranteed that I'll never learn to speak and understand Swahili. If I keep at it, there's a very small glimmer of hope that one day, Ayubu and I will be chatting up a storm.
God is using this to keep me humble. And hopefully I'll exercise a little imani of my own that this will happen some day.
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