My mom called again the other day. Among other things we discussed my infrequency of blogging and the flurry of activity that happens in the Kokomo Housing Authority office at the end of each period of anxious anticipation for the next installment of My Peace Corps Life.
So, to the ladies of KHA, here you go. Pace yourselves. Make it last. (Oh, and if you did not answer my survey questions, go back and do it, cause that’s what these next few entries are about. It’s just the all the answers to all your questions.)
Survey Responses: Le Nguyen (aka Mom)
1. Who are you and how did you find my blog?
Lady, I forward your blogs to the PC volunteer mom. The mom, Lydia Thompson encourages one of us who has a son or daughter serve in Africa, to join the email to share thought and ideas.
2. What were you in the middle of doing just now? (If it was eating a McDonald’s cheeseburger and fries, OMG AM I JEALOUS!!!).
Working and starting to read your blog as Mariella, coworker told me , Tammy blogs is updated.
3. What burning question do you have for me that I have not yet answered?
How are your native language going? Do you speak well now?
4. How many times have you laughed, cried, and/or thrown up as you have read my blog?
I laughed or giggle myself many times for you are hilarious not thrown up yet.
5. What is the best/worst/funniest recent moment in your life for which I have been absent?
I miss you the most for not be talking to you on the phone.
6. And last of all, what do you miss most about me???
Your hugs and kisses.
So she wants to know how language is going. How indeed.
Language is a relentless struggle punctuated with an occasional shining moment of glory right when the outlook is so dismal that I am ready to throw in the towel. As the Gambians like to put it, I’m learning slowly slowly.
Learning Mandinka is particularly complex and puzzling in ways that learning Spanish never was. And though I speak Vietnamese, I never actually had to sit and learn it- it just seeped into my brain as I grew up, though I must admit I can barely read and write due to my inattention during Vietnamese lessons the summer after second and third grade. I am thus regrettably illiterate. Sorry Mom.
At any rate, being that I am on my fourth language, you would think I have learned some secrets by now. If you happen to be good at languages like I mistakenly thought I was, or if you have never studied a language before and can’t imagine why Mandinka would be any different from any other, let me outline a few challenges for you now.
Challenge #1: Mandinka is not a written language. It has been passed down orally throughout the years, and the majority of efforts to capture it in writing have been done by missionary groups or Peace Corps. As a result, words are always spelled three different ways by three different teachers and/or books, and being that I am a book studier, each time I run into a different spelling I think I am running into a new word.
Challenge #2: Words have multiple meanings. For example, I ask where my brother Lamen is. They say “A be wuloo kono.” I hear, “He is in the dog.” What they mean is, “He is in the bush.” And when I say bush, I don’t mean a shrub. What I mean is the African countryside. The African bush. Leading to Challenge #3…
Challenge #3: I don’t even understand the English. Tentengo is a “basket for winnowing.” I thought winnowing was some sort of fishing technique. Then I realized I was thinking of minnows. Winnowing is actually the action of tossing rice in the air after it has been pounded in order to separate the grain from the husk. I believe that is what you call it, the cover of the rice is the husk, right?
Then there is kalamaa- “a small calabash.” I thought a calabash might be some sort of bush. The Gambian man sitting next to me told me it was a pot for washing rice. A volunteer told me it was a squash. It finally dawned on me. A kalamaa is the half gourd that makes a cute little bowl! Moving on…
Challenge #4: Translations have no meaning. Either because their English is different from my English, or because literal translations just make no sense. A typical greeting, repeated at least once to every person I meet, every day, regardless if I already know them or not:
Me: Peace be upon you.
Them: Peace be upon you too.
Me: Where are the compound people?
Them: They are there.
Me: You are at peace?
Them: Peace only.
Me: Hope there is no trouble there?
Them: There is no trouble there.
I cease to wonder what that means. If I come upon a group of 15 old men hanging on the side of the road, I must go down the line and shake all their hands and say that entire script to each and every one of them, individually. Which may explain why I generally try to avoid large groups.
Once past the rote memorization greetings, things can get even more confusing. Such as, in response to me saying I am from America, I am asked, “What is there?” The first time it happened I stood there stumped with a puzzled expression on my face as my mind raced through the realm of possible answers. Nothing seemed appropriate. And as I was pondering the question, repeating it out loud during my few moments of contemplation, I must have stalled too long because the woman shouts “She does not hear Mandinka!” To which I think, “I hear Mandinka just fine. What I don’t hear, though, is what I should answer with.”
Next time I’m just going to say, “Obama is there.”
Challenge #5: The dictionary cracks me up. That’s what it is best used for. Yesterday I wanted to buy fabric and thought I should prepare for the event by learning the colors. I had the typical black, white, red, and blue in my notes, but nothing about the colors I really like in clothing. So I went to look up pink, and there is no entry for pink, but there is a word for Pink Peanut. I then move on to purple, and sure enough, no entry found for that word, but there is a word for Purple Heron. I also had tasted some kind of vaguely familiar fruit the other day. After going outside to ask again the word in Mandinka, I go to look it up. Definition: Some kind of fruit.
Challenge #6: Definitions don’t help even when you have them. My host mum yelled at the six-year-old. I didn’t quite know what she said. Turns out he was told, “Your mouth is short.” I don’t know what that means.
Challenge #7: The language is rather fanciful. One time I was told “Your head is not on it on it.” They meant, “You forgot.” To say Chinese people and Vietnamese people are different, I must say, “Chinese people and Vietnamese people are not one.”
But you know, I’m starting to get the hang of it. I had to ask my host mom about moving furniture the other day and was lacking a few key words. Furniture being one. I find it and in trying to memorize it, I realize it is actually a compound word that means “things-in-the-house.” I then need the word for “truck,” and as I subconsciously will my mind to THINK Mandinka, FEEL Mandinka, BE Mandinka, I begin to think speculate that I would be understood if I call the truck a “big car.” But a little obsessively, I look it up anyway. And what do we have? “Moto baa.” Big car.
Ah Haaa! Mandinka, I think I got you figured out!!!
Saturday, March 28, 2009
It’s Like Giving Birth to a Demon
Peace Corps gets this great deal here with the mobile phone company Africell. For just 50 Dalasis (~$2) a month volunteers can have unlimited texting amongst themselves. For just 50 more Dalasis, we can have unlimited calling between the hours of 12 a.m. to 5 p.m. Being that most don’t have electricity to charge cell phones we try to maximize battery life by sending texts. I now present to you a representation of exchanges that take place in a typical day in my following compilation, “A Day in the Texts.”
Be forewarned, among volunteers, bowel movements are popular topic of conversation. If you don’t want to know, don’t continue reading.
A Day in the Texts
“My one eyed 90 year old grandma just grabbed a goat by its leg and started beating it with a stick while all the kids danced around singing.”
“My foot just slipped into the latrine hole! I’m going to vomit!”
“Thought you might like to know that I ate a can of Spaghetti O’s straight out of the can, unheated with no utensils, and it was ten pm at the hospital, so I secretly went outside and did it in the dark, so no one would see… And [I] have been consistently eating Chef Boyardee unheated this last week AND drinking the leftover sauce afterwards. I felt so embarrassed every time… Eating in secret makes it SO much worse for some reason.”
“I’m patiently waiting for my host sister to finish taking a sh*t in the middle of the road.”
“I just put moldy sauce on my pasta. It’s not delicious yet I’m still eating it.”
“It’s like giving birth to a demon.” (In reference to what it feels like to have the runs, on a daily basis)
“My house has smelled like rotting animal carcass with an overdraft of cow sh*t all day. I have searched high and low. Just went outside to look around… Lo and behold, Dead Chicken #5, complete with half a head and maggots, rotting delicately beneath my open window.”
“I had a cockroach crawl on my foot today while I was lost in thought on the latrine. Aka giving birth. I thought it was one of the kittens until a LIZARD ran up and took it right off my foot. I couldn’t finish pooping, I was so disturbed.”
“Some times I get so homesick up here I think I could die… then I think of your texts and I start laughing.”
[Editor’s Note: Ok, truth be told, pretty much all those messages come from one source. Her name is Kasey and she and I like to entertain one another with outrageous texts. None of mine are quoted here but generally we play this game and it’s a tie. I will leave the rest to your imagination.]
Be forewarned, among volunteers, bowel movements are popular topic of conversation. If you don’t want to know, don’t continue reading.
A Day in the Texts
“My one eyed 90 year old grandma just grabbed a goat by its leg and started beating it with a stick while all the kids danced around singing.”
“My foot just slipped into the latrine hole! I’m going to vomit!”
“Thought you might like to know that I ate a can of Spaghetti O’s straight out of the can, unheated with no utensils, and it was ten pm at the hospital, so I secretly went outside and did it in the dark, so no one would see… And [I] have been consistently eating Chef Boyardee unheated this last week AND drinking the leftover sauce afterwards. I felt so embarrassed every time… Eating in secret makes it SO much worse for some reason.”
“I’m patiently waiting for my host sister to finish taking a sh*t in the middle of the road.”
“I just put moldy sauce on my pasta. It’s not delicious yet I’m still eating it.”
“It’s like giving birth to a demon.” (In reference to what it feels like to have the runs, on a daily basis)
“My house has smelled like rotting animal carcass with an overdraft of cow sh*t all day. I have searched high and low. Just went outside to look around… Lo and behold, Dead Chicken #5, complete with half a head and maggots, rotting delicately beneath my open window.”
“I had a cockroach crawl on my foot today while I was lost in thought on the latrine. Aka giving birth. I thought it was one of the kittens until a LIZARD ran up and took it right off my foot. I couldn’t finish pooping, I was so disturbed.”
“Some times I get so homesick up here I think I could die… then I think of your texts and I start laughing.”
[Editor’s Note: Ok, truth be told, pretty much all those messages come from one source. Her name is Kasey and she and I like to entertain one another with outrageous texts. None of mine are quoted here but generally we play this game and it’s a tie. I will leave the rest to your imagination.]
Vacay: Take II
Attention all vacationers! If you do not yet have plans, meet me in Madrid! I will be there June 4-14. I know the last vacation rendezvous didn’t quite work out since I made it to Peru on evacuation two weeks before Mollie & Friends, but I want to try again. I hear rumors that my long lost bro and girlfriend may be meeting me? And perhaps my dear mother as well? Anyone else who would like to join, bienvenidos!
P.S. I still have quite a bit of vacation days. If you have a destination in mind, let me know. Most of Europe is rather reasonable if it is a more appealing option than where I currently reside, though I would be more than happy to give the grand tour of The Gam.
P.S. I still have quite a bit of vacation days. If you have a destination in mind, let me know. Most of Europe is rather reasonable if it is a more appealing option than where I currently reside, though I would be more than happy to give the grand tour of The Gam.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Rebuild the Peace Corps
More than ever, the world needs ‘underutilized’ organization
By Bob Shacochis
USA Today
McLean, Va.
February 25, 2009
Last month in central Mozambique, one of the planet's poorest countries, I stood among the thatched mud-and-wattle huts of the village of Vinho. I was admiring the subsistence farming community's handsome new school with Greg Carr, an American philanthropist who had built that school. Since 2004, Carr, who made his fortune in the information technology boom of the '90s, has devoted his wealth, time and considerable energy to the rehabilitation of Mozambique's Gorongosa National Park. Once considered Africa's premier game preserve, Gorongosa had been destroyed by decades of war and lawlessness.
The school is a small part of the comprehensive vision of Carr and Mozambique to use the restoration of the park as a development engine for the hundreds of thousands of desperately impoverished peasants who live in the forests and hills surrounding Gorongosa. The 20-year-long hand-back agreement between the government and the Carr Foundation is an exemplary model for the marriage of private altruism and public policy in the Third World.
Even so, the day Carr and I toured the school, marveling at its solar-powered electricity and computer lab, his voice grew somber as he responded to my questions.
How many students?
Two hundred.
How many teachers?
Five.
Carr explained that the government had an uphill battle trying to staff its schools with qualified teachers. Even when a teacher was hired, his or her tenure was a daily concern because of the high rate of attrition caused by AIDS, malaria or other diseases. Vinho's five teachers had dwindled to three. Carr thought the best hope for fully staffing the school had only one apparent solution: the Peace Corps. But he wasn't optimistic. There were only two Peace Corps volunteers — much-loved teachers — in the entire district, based in a town an hour's drive away.
Does Mozambique want more Peace Corps volunteers assigned to the country? Absolutely. The Peace Corps has been in Mozambique since 1998, after its civil war ended and its once Marxist-Leninist leaders changed ideological direction. The nation held free multiparty elections and did everything possible to make itself one of the most progressive countries in the region. There are 163 volunteers in Mozambique, where Portuguese is the official language. Carr and his Portuguese communications director, Vasco Galante, guessed the country could absorb 10,000 volunteers.
So here we find ourselves, celebrating the inauguration of President Obama, a farsighted leader who has inspired millions of young Americans with his call to service. We also find ourselves on the threshold of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's new diplomatic initiative, the exercise of "smart power" in a multifaceted effort to reclaim our moral and political integrity in the eyes of the world. The obvious equation seems written in neon: "Call to service" plus "smart power" equals Peace Corps.
Dollar for dollar, you cannot get a more reliable, cost-effective answer than the Peace Corps when the challenge is to win hearts and minds around the globe. For all of Africa's wars since President Kennedy launched the Peace Corps in 1961, one of the continent's most liberating achievements in the intervening decades has been the education of millions of African children by Peace Corps volunteers. Those once illiterate students are now Africa's middle class, civil servants and leaders, struggling to meet their nations' basic needs.
Today, the U.S. sends fewer than 4,000 Peace Corps volunteers overseas annually — half the number we sent four decades ago. The agency, which is underfunded, underappreciated and underutilized, turns away too many prospective volunteers for lack of resources. More than 20 countries that do not have Peace Corps programs are waiting for Congress to keep its bipartisan promise to double the Peace Corps' size. But that promise is likely to wither on the vine of our shrinking economy without Obama's support, which would be the equivalent, in budgetary terms, of upgrading a shoestring to a bootstrap.
Throughout Africa's villages and cities, portraits of Obama have already been tacked on walls next to images of the Kennedy brothers, Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela. It's impossible to go anywhere in Mozambique without hearing someone repeat what has become the world's marching order for a better future: Sim, podemos. Yes, we can.
Obama, our No. 44, who has a passion for saluting the creative legacies of his predecessors by assimilating their sensibilities into his own actions, should continue that fine habit by adapting a slogan of No. 43 to No. 35's powerful enduring vision of international service: No Volunteer Left Behind.
And in the eyes of the world, Mr. President, if you want the biggest symbolic bang for your ever dwindling buck, rebuild the Peace Corps.
By Bob Shacochis
USA Today
McLean, Va.
February 25, 2009
Last month in central Mozambique, one of the planet's poorest countries, I stood among the thatched mud-and-wattle huts of the village of Vinho. I was admiring the subsistence farming community's handsome new school with Greg Carr, an American philanthropist who had built that school. Since 2004, Carr, who made his fortune in the information technology boom of the '90s, has devoted his wealth, time and considerable energy to the rehabilitation of Mozambique's Gorongosa National Park. Once considered Africa's premier game preserve, Gorongosa had been destroyed by decades of war and lawlessness.
The school is a small part of the comprehensive vision of Carr and Mozambique to use the restoration of the park as a development engine for the hundreds of thousands of desperately impoverished peasants who live in the forests and hills surrounding Gorongosa. The 20-year-long hand-back agreement between the government and the Carr Foundation is an exemplary model for the marriage of private altruism and public policy in the Third World.
Even so, the day Carr and I toured the school, marveling at its solar-powered electricity and computer lab, his voice grew somber as he responded to my questions.
How many students?
Two hundred.
How many teachers?
Five.
Carr explained that the government had an uphill battle trying to staff its schools with qualified teachers. Even when a teacher was hired, his or her tenure was a daily concern because of the high rate of attrition caused by AIDS, malaria or other diseases. Vinho's five teachers had dwindled to three. Carr thought the best hope for fully staffing the school had only one apparent solution: the Peace Corps. But he wasn't optimistic. There were only two Peace Corps volunteers — much-loved teachers — in the entire district, based in a town an hour's drive away.
Does Mozambique want more Peace Corps volunteers assigned to the country? Absolutely. The Peace Corps has been in Mozambique since 1998, after its civil war ended and its once Marxist-Leninist leaders changed ideological direction. The nation held free multiparty elections and did everything possible to make itself one of the most progressive countries in the region. There are 163 volunteers in Mozambique, where Portuguese is the official language. Carr and his Portuguese communications director, Vasco Galante, guessed the country could absorb 10,000 volunteers.
So here we find ourselves, celebrating the inauguration of President Obama, a farsighted leader who has inspired millions of young Americans with his call to service. We also find ourselves on the threshold of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's new diplomatic initiative, the exercise of "smart power" in a multifaceted effort to reclaim our moral and political integrity in the eyes of the world. The obvious equation seems written in neon: "Call to service" plus "smart power" equals Peace Corps.
Dollar for dollar, you cannot get a more reliable, cost-effective answer than the Peace Corps when the challenge is to win hearts and minds around the globe. For all of Africa's wars since President Kennedy launched the Peace Corps in 1961, one of the continent's most liberating achievements in the intervening decades has been the education of millions of African children by Peace Corps volunteers. Those once illiterate students are now Africa's middle class, civil servants and leaders, struggling to meet their nations' basic needs.
Today, the U.S. sends fewer than 4,000 Peace Corps volunteers overseas annually — half the number we sent four decades ago. The agency, which is underfunded, underappreciated and underutilized, turns away too many prospective volunteers for lack of resources. More than 20 countries that do not have Peace Corps programs are waiting for Congress to keep its bipartisan promise to double the Peace Corps' size. But that promise is likely to wither on the vine of our shrinking economy without Obama's support, which would be the equivalent, in budgetary terms, of upgrading a shoestring to a bootstrap.
Throughout Africa's villages and cities, portraits of Obama have already been tacked on walls next to images of the Kennedy brothers, Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela. It's impossible to go anywhere in Mozambique without hearing someone repeat what has become the world's marching order for a better future: Sim, podemos. Yes, we can.
Obama, our No. 44, who has a passion for saluting the creative legacies of his predecessors by assimilating their sensibilities into his own actions, should continue that fine habit by adapting a slogan of No. 43 to No. 35's powerful enduring vision of international service: No Volunteer Left Behind.
And in the eyes of the world, Mr. President, if you want the biggest symbolic bang for your ever dwindling buck, rebuild the Peace Corps.
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