Reflection: Language Learning

As Training comes to an end, I thought it might be appropriate to reflect on what has made up such a huge part of our lives over the past few months: Learning Bambara

I  certainly did not realize how challenging it would be to start from the ground up. When I studied abroad during undergrad, I traveled to France having studied the language for 4 years in high school and 5 semesters in college. Sure, my conversational skills were lacking, but I had a huge base of vocabulary and structures buried somewhere in my head which I could refer back to if need be. I remember feeling how mentally exhausting it was to speak a foreign language constantly all day. Yet, in France, I started at a level where I could have relatively intelligent conversations with my host family and professors about culture, politics, classes, and daily activities. Here in Mali, this simply was not the case. Peace Corps only gave us one language session (Good Morning, How are you?, How is your family?) before dropping us into Homestay with no one to translate and a whole boatload of culture shock to deal with.

One huge shocker for me was that no one in my host family spoke French. I had come to Mali with the impression that it was a Francophone country and if you had asked me before I left, language was the last thing I was worried about. But then on that very first night in homestay, 2 months ago, I kept asking “Est-ce qu’il y a quelqu’un dans la famille qui parle francais?” (Is there anyone in the family that speaks French? and all I got were blank stares in return. I later learned that though French is the national language, most Malians don’t start learning it until grade 3 and can’t really speak it unless they’ve been to high school, which is often not the case unless you grew up in a bigger city.

Bambara itself was hard to wrap my mind around. In Bambara, one word will often have 3 or 4 meanings, which you have to guess based on context. For example, ba means mother, goat,  river, and respected man. Go figure. On the other hand, once you have the basics down you can probably guess the more complex words just by combining some simple ones. i.e. School = Study place, Diarrhea = stomach running, cafeteria = eating place, rain = sky water, etc. Ironically, it was this simplicity that sometimes made things very confusing for us.

Yet, little by little, we were forced to pick things up. It started with the practical vocab like “lunch” and “bathroom”, followed by phrases like “I’m going to school. See you later.” And having language class 8 hours per day, it was easy to start forming simple sentences. We were so excited when we finally had something to say to break that awkward heavy silence that sometimes hung in the air as we sat with our families at night.

Now, 2 months into homestay, we have only just barely reached the point where we can have a coherent conversation in Bambara about health, nutrition, or agriculture. However, we have also only just gotten to know our families well enough where they trust us enough to care about our weird western advice. Now as we leave for site next week, we have been told that our main job for the first 3 months is language acquisition and integration. Of course Jim and I have some mini projects planned as well, but homestay has really emphasized to me that it truly is important to get to know you community and be able to communicate BEFORE you try to make changes. So for all of you reading along and hoping to hear of us saving the world in the next few months, be patient :) We’ll be continuing language learning and hoping to build a strong relational foundation for the first few months at site before getting any bigger projects underway.

 

~Joye