HALLO MR. CHINESE LADY BABY!

 HALLO MR. CHINESE LADY BABY

There is a bicycle táxi driver in town that greets me everyday. He screams out, “ Hallo Mr. Chinese Lady Baby” as he passes me, giving me a fright every time.  Surely he is using every English word he knows and he compacts them all in one exuberant salutation.  My neighbors have a cadre of names for me as well.  The adults call me Mama Hobin, Mama a term of respect here in Mozambique.  Robin seems a hard name for them to either hear or say.  Hobin is the result.   The children call me Rubin, Robini and other more or less similar versions. 

I don’t correct anyone.  I answer to them all.  It isn’t the words or the sounds that matter, but the communication intent.  And that, any language instructor would say, is the central obstacle to language proficiency.  Diction, sentence structure and conjugation are key elements, and shouldn’t be ignored.  Yet, as with most things, I go about my language learning differently.

Walking down the hospital corridor last week, I tried to side-step an area of the just washed floor.  Making eye contact with the maintenance man, I smiled.  He smiled back and said, “F—k you”.   It wasn’t until I turned the corner that I realized he had spoken to me in English.  And, I realized just what he had said.   I returned to find him in a huddle with the cook, both of them giggling like naughty children. 

Mary, the cook, and the maintenance man, have been practicing various English words and phrases.  The maintenance man told me he hadn’t meant to say this out loud.  He had been repeating the phrase to himself and it just popped out when he saw me.  They were both embarrassed.  He had no intention to offend,  he just desperately wanted to try out a little English.   They happily accepted my offer to share more useful phrases.  Our friendship was cemented with that exchange.

Mary, the kitchen worker.  Who could imagine this sweet face
saying such things?

It wasn’t their choice of words that mattered, they simply wanted to communicate.  Like my neighbors and the bicycle taxi man, people use the words they know, even if the words aren’t the best choice, are pronounced wrong, or make no sense at all.  The intent is to communicate, to connect.

Since my arrival, I have stumbled with Portuguese.  I found myself responding in Ukrainian, or with bits of French and Spanish.  My talkative and expressive self was mute, held captive by this language I simply couldn’t seem to speak.   So, I decided not to speak at all, but to listen.  But even this proved difficult, as I couldn’t decipher the sounds.

Most Mozambicans, when they speak, are barely audible.  Their voices are quieter than a whisper.  I am not sure if this is a remaining effect of colonialism, but when posing a question to a Mozambican, it is not uncommon to receive no answer at all, or at best, a hushed response.  For someone trying to learn the language, and having a hearing deficiency, it was maddening. 

My language learning needed a new strategy. I couldn’t rely on learning from my colleagues when I wasn’t able to understand   them, let alone hear them.   I realized I first had to listen to myself.   I had to hear my own anxieties and my needs.  I had to put first things first.  This included making a comfortable home, learning how to do all the new daily activities, and integrating into my surroundings, regardless of the language.  I had to settle. 

It probably took me longer than other Peace Corps Volunteers, but I was able to find a way to communicate more comfortably.  I sought out quieter environments, conducive to personal or small group conversations.  I read Portuguese Peace Corps manuals at night to increase my vocabulary and to better understand sentence structure.    But most importantly, I let go of the constructs of language success, constructs that I had allowed others to define.   

My language has improved these past weeks, as if by mere chance.  I still fumble with pronunciation and sentence structure, but staying true to my belief that it is the intent of communication that matters, and not the specifics, allows me to relax.   Being non-judgmental with my own use of language, as I am to others, seems to have opened the gateway of my brain’s language receptors.   And, in this state of mind, connecting to others is easier.  I am not sure if I have strung together phrases as strange as, “Hallo Mr. Chinese Lady Baby", but if so, I hope others enjoyed it.