To learn Bambara

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head.
If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.   Nelson Mandela

"You said that the rain needs the fields."
"oh... I did?"
I have just finished 3 weeks of trial/review Bambara lessons with Fatim.  I wanted to see how lessons would go with this teacher before making a longer commitment, and to get caught back up to where I left off studying - I hadn't picked up my study materials in many months.  But I do use a tiny bit of Bambara on an almost daily basis with taxi drivers, shopkeepers and market sellers, and in greeting neighbors.  The 3 weeks of lessons showed me a few things:  Fatim is an excellent teacher and I can learn well with her, there is a lot of Bambara in my head - I hadn't forgotten it all, and I do know a fair bit, and that if I am going to pay and take lessons I need to free up my schedule so that I will have plenty of time to put in long hours of practice and studying.

Fatim is a Malian woman about my age who previously was employed by the Peace Corps to teach their new recruits the Bambara language.  She worked for Peace Corps for about 6 years before they pulled out of the country after the coup d'état last year.  Now she is unemployed except for when she can find students to tutor (and that isn't often since there aren't many new white people coming to Mali since the coup.)  She has plenty of time and the rate she charges is good motivation for her to come and teach me even though it takes her about an hour and a half on public transport to get to and from my house for lessons (she lives outside of Bamako.)  I did two 2-hour lessons per week at $12 an hour.  That is really good pay for someone here.  I talked to a ditch digger last week and asked him how much he makes, and he said $10 a day.  Someone with an unskilled and less strenuous job like a night guard could earn $3-4 a day.  So $12 an hour seems pretty steep, but it is the going rate for a top notch Bambara teacher in the city, and I do think its worth it.  Fatim is used to working with Americans, she understands how we learn and what is difficult for us.  She comes to my house and I don't have to go her and hope that she hasn't forgotten about our lesson. (I had that happen with other teachers in the past.)  She speaks French and English. (one of my past teachers only spoke Bambara and so couldn't explain things I wasn't understanding)  She is trained and experienced to teach language and her professionalism and competence is reassuring. 
I told Fatim that I want to start lessons with her again as soon as I get back from my trip to Chad.

Although I learned a lot of new things too, most of what we covered in the last 3 weeks was (much needed) review for me.  I have plenty of words in my head and I have a good foundation of the language's grammar.  I can form questions, but that doesn't do too much good when I can't really understand someone's response.  I also have a tendency to mix up the order of words in sentences and say things like the rain and fields example at top or to leave out one of the many postpositions which ties everything together.  I need to invest a lot of time and practice to be able to really speak and understand one day.
So I need to make room in my schedule for Bambara learning.  Many folks who come to Mali (who work for organizations other than mine) spend a year in France to learn French before they come.  Then they spend their first year in Mali doing nothing but Bambara and culture learning.  A couple I talked to said that they spent 30 hours a week every week their first year doing lessons or study or practice to be able to speak the language.  And they can speak it, really well.
I kind of feel bad sometimes to think that I've been here this long already and I can't speak Bambara.  But my first year, though I jumped into work immediately, I was learning a ton of French every day.  And then I got married and set up house and changed work (from helping at school to helping at the baby malnutrition center) and I was still improving my French, and I finally started some Bambara lessons.  Then my mom came to visit so I took a break and then the teacher got busy, then we went to the states for 3 months.  I started to learn with a different teacher and I even spent 3 weeks in a village to see how much I could learn there.  Then the coup d'état happened and I left the country for 3 months.  When I came back I did a few lessons with another teacher, but we were getting ready to move to Bamako.  Besides, I felt pretty frustrated with it all, I felt like I wasn't making much progress.  So for months I have had this nagging idea that I should be learning Bambara, but I hadn't made any steps forward to do so until just a few weeks ago.  And now I'm fired up and ready to do this!  When we get back from Chad I will have a schedule that is much more open so that I can devote about half my time to my English teaching work and half my time to learning Bambara. 

Here is a picture which has nothing to do with this blog post except, well, its me and I wrote the post I guess.  Blog posts without pictures can be kind of boring, so there you go.  I'm sending you a smile. :)

language mistakes



I am going to give you a chance to see what a big fool I am able to make of myself - in this case specifically with language mistakes. Some of these were pretty funny to me right away, but others were embarrassing or frustrating at the time but I can laugh about it now.  I make some silly mistakes in language every day I'm sure (probably even in English) but these are the moments that stick out in my memory from the past few years.  Some of these might not seem as funny to you, it might be one of those "you had to be there" things.

Shortly after I moved to Mali (fall 2009) I asked the kindergarten teacher I was working with if the dog who lived in the school yard had a name.  She pointed at the dog and said yes.  Huh?  Well, what is it?  She pointed again and kind of tipped her head as if to look under the dog.  I was totally confused.  Is the dog's name written under him?  Seeing that I was still confused, she brought me closer to look under the dog.  Yes, she said, he is a man, see?!  I was a bit startled to understand what she was trying to have me look at, and still confused.  I said: Ok, but what is he called? 

She finally understood that I was asking about the dog's name ("nom") and not whether or not he was a man. ("homme")

I guess my pronunciation was not so good in this case, and it was also probably because I hadn't known the teacher long and she wasn't used to the way that I tried to speak French.  I never did learn that dog's name.

Another animal story:  We were going on a little trip and we hired a guard to watch our house at night while we were gone. The guard came over so that I could give him instructions.  After covering everything else I mentioned that our kitten would be there hanging out in the yard too.  (this was before we had a dog)  The guard looked at me funny.  The what?  The kitten, I said.  What is a "kitten"? he asked.  You know, I said as I scanned the yard to see if it was around so I could point it out.  The kitten wasn't in sight so I made a meowing sound and used my hands to show the size of our kitten.  The guard gave me a look and said:  We call those a "cat." 

French was not the guards first language, but the word for kitten ("chaton") is not very different from cat ("chat") so I would have thought he could have figured it out.

One time before we were married (when my French was still improving rapidly) JP and I were talking and I was being kind of romantic and poetic (ok, cheesy, I'll admit it.) and I said to him, "our love is like a fire."  JP looked at me with misunderstanding in his eyes (not the desired effect) and asked me to repeat myself.  I did, but it didn't help.  He asked me "our love is like a man that is mentally unstable? our love is crazy?"  Oh, he thought I said "fou" instead of "feu" (fire).   No, a "fire" like something that is burning hot, I explained.  Oh, he said, our love is like an oven, where you'd bake something?  Now he thought I said "four" (oven) and still hasn't understood fire. Sheesh.  Romantic moment totally ruined.  After another minute of effort he finally understood that I wanted to say "fire" and then he had me repeat the correct pronunciation a few times.

We were on a bus trip one time and I saw some vultures circling in the sky nearby.  "Look at the cars!" I said excitedly as I pointed out the birds to JP.  He started cracking up.  Cars in the sky?  I knew it wasn't right when it came out of my mouth, but vulture ("vautour") and car ("voiture") are pretty close.

At one of my first Bambara lessons my teacher was helping me learn greetings.  After learning the greetings he wanted to do a role play.  I came up to him and instead of saying "good evening" (I ni wula.)  I greeted him with "You and the dog!" (I ni wulu.)  The teacher got a kick out of that and said I really should make sure not to greet anyone else that way because he wasn't sure if they would take it well.

Recently I went to the outdoor market place and wanted to find a funnel (for filling water bottles.)  The problem was that I didn't know the word for funnel in French.  (in 3 1/2 years here this was the first time I'd needed the word, they're not a real hot topic of conversation) 

I wandered around and saw a black funnel sticking out of an oil can at a hardware shop.  I went over and pointed at it and asked if they sold those.  The young man said they didn't.  I decided to ask how to say the name of one of those.  "A black thing," the young man mumbled in response to my question.  "A black thing?!  Yeah right, I'm sure that if I go somewhere else and ask for 'a black thing' they're going to know exactly what I'm talking about!"  I was a bit irritated with the mumbling young man.  I left the shop and went home.  I looked up the word for funnel in French and realized that the young man had in fact told me the word for funnel ("entonnoir") and not said "a black thing" ("un truc noir") as I had misheard.  oops!

Fourth Fete

I had a really fun 4th of July with my English students.  At the class before the holiday I had told them that the next class would be on America's birthday and that we would have a little party at the end of class.  (this is times 2  because on Thursdays I've been teaching 2 classes in a row)  I told them I would dress in patriotic colors and that they could wear some red, white, and blue too if they wanted.  It would also be my last night as their teacher because next week I leave for a month in Chad.  So along with everything else, the new teachers (a couple) would come to introduce themselves and meet the students during the party at the end of each class. 
One of my students brought me a cake!  It says "Bonne Fete Elisa" (my middle name is Elizabeth and I often go by Eliza (or Elisa I guess) here as it is much easier for people to say and remember than Erin)  I was so touched by this gesture.  So that is the top picture. 
In the 2nd photo you see the student who would have won the prize for being most patriotically dressed if only I had such an award to give.  He is holding a sticker of the American flag with Obama's head and the words "one love" on it.  I was given this as a gift by another student.  I don't think JP will let me stick it on the motorcycle, so I'll have to find a notebook or something to put it on.  Have I mentioned that you can find Barack Obama everything here?  Obama bags, belts, tshirts, cookies, barbershops, and so on.  I think its pretty funny. 
At the end of each class I shared cake that I had baked and (painstakingly) brought with me to school, and the new teachers showed up with Cokes for everyone.  (good way to make a great first impression I'd say!)
If you think I look kind of pink and shiny in the pictures you are right.  It was 90+ degrees with probably around 80-90% humidity and the power was cut!  So we were out on the veranda to try to catch a (nonexistent) breeze.  We are into rainy season now, and the lower temperatures are a great relief, but the humidity can be pretty yucky.


A picture of the students laughing.  If we can't have fun in class then something is wrong, learning should be fun!
So I am done with teaching English until mid-September when the next semester starts.  But I'll be back from Chad to help with the end of this semester's testing and the party to give certificates.  Then there is level testing for new students and 3 registration nights for the next classes, so I will be busy with school stuff even before the new classes start.

 

gettting tickets, and swimming

I had an unusual day when I went downtown to pay for our tickets to Chad. (it was a month ago, but I haven't had a lot of time to sit still and write since then, so I'm finally doing it now)

To get tickets to go to Chad, I had done a lot of searching online.  The best deal was with a small African company, but I couldn't book the tickets online. I say the best deal and it sounds like there were a lot of options, but really there were only 2 possibilities  There isn't a ton of competition for flying between African countries, and that contributes to the high prices I'm sure. 
The distance between us here in Mali and where we are going in Chad is about the same distance between where I'm from in Minnesota and where I used to live in California (1500-1600 miles.)  But the tickets to fly in the USA run around $400 and the tickets to fly in Africa are at $1350 (each.)

So I could find the schedule and price online, but it wasn't possible to actually buy the tickets online, so I contacted a travel agency downtown.  Then, after trips to the ATM several days in a row, I had enough money to pay for the tickets and I needed to take it to the travel agency downtown to pay and get the tickets.  It would be easier to use a credit card and not go across town with a big wad of cash in my bag, but they didn't give me a credit card option, and I imagine that even if they had it wouldn't be a good idea because of foreign transaction fees.

So I left my house with the big wad of cash in my purse and walked 5 minutes to the place I can get a taxi.  I gave the taximan the name of the hotel where the travel agency is located, and he brought me across the river and downtown (where I almost never go.)  In the travel agency office I sat down across a desk from an agent.  She looked up my information on her computer and said that there was a little problem because in the 4-5 days since they gave me a quote the prices had gone up a bit.  Oh.  Not good, I thought.  The travel agent took a piece of paper and started to write on it.  Really not good, I thought.  If she can't tell me the new price but needs to write it down, it must be really bad.  She passed me the paper and I almost started to laugh when I saw that the new price per ticket was about $1.60 higher than the old price. Relief!  I can handle an extra $1.60 per ticket.  I wonder if the travel agent gets bored and she just likes to see if she can make people sweat or something.
I paid and got the printed out tickets.  Then it was time for a special treat:  SWIMMING!

When the weather is sweltering hot, as it is all too often here, I tend to think a lot about swimming.  But I don't get to go swimming very often.  On the day of going downtown to get plane tickets, I had decided that I would also spend a few hours to have a needed break and relax and go to one of the nice pools at a downtown hotel.  After finishing at the travel agency I went into the main hotel door (which included a metal detector and my purse going through a scanner) to find out about their pool.  I was sent out back to the pool, where to my surprise I encountered something like 25 speedo-clad French military men stretched out on pool loungers.  I guess this might be some kind of fantasy situation for certain women, but definitely not my cup of tea.  I decided to go elsewhere.

I went out on to the busy street in front of the hotel to try to get a taxi to take me to a different hotel.  I started walking as I waited for an unoccupied to taxi to come by, and out of nowhere some annoying man on a motorcycle pulled over to start harassing me.  After some normal greetings, he complimented my looks and then offered to give me a ride where ever I wanted to go.  I politely said "no thanks" but he wasn't one to be easily defeated.  After again saying that I didn't want a ride, I decided to pull out the "I'm married" card.  "I don't think my husband would like it if I went with you."  And do you know what Mr. Annoying Harasser Man said?  "Your husband doesn't need to know."  Wow.  So I said "um, ok, bye..." and walked away. (which is what JP said I should have done from the beginning when I told him this story)

I managed to get to another hotel with a nice pool.  This is the hotel where we had our Ladies' Retreat last October.  It costs $6 to go swimming here on a weekday, on the weekend they charge $10. I was there on a weekday, and I had the place all to myself for a few hours!

cool/uncool

cool = being the teacher who brings cake to class for her students
uncool = having to walk and carry a cake by hand for 20 minutes to get to school, in the 2:30pm blazing African sun
slightly better but still not cool = taking 2 cakes to school by motorcycle, balanced on the gas tank in front of me with my knees keeping them from falling (yes, while wearing an ankle-length skirt and sandals - I've got some serious skill)
Oh, the interesting things I get to do!