Communication

Here in Nairobi I'm "speaking" five languages:

• There is my English of course, spoken with almost everyone except the beggars who seem not to know anything more than simple greetings in English. They have the least education of anyone in the city I have met. I guess that makes sense...



• There is the Arabic I'm studying in a classroom setting nine hours a week. Our instructor has his own ideas of what we should learn so to this point we aren't really learning much that will be practical when we get back to the bush.



• There is Maaban, the heart language of my tribe in Sudan, that I am learning with a tutor two hours a week and practicing some on the weekends in the homes of Sudanese refugees.



• There is Ki-Swahili, the heart language of many in Nairobi , used in greetings and when speaking to the uneducated beggars. I know only a few phrases, but it clearly touches the people that I'm trying. They are delighted and very encouraging even when I stumble over the meanings and butcher the pronunciation.



• And then a little Spanish comes out sometimes when I'm searching for the correct word in Arabic or Maaban...

In Sudan, nine times out of ten a translator is available to help me with work in the clinic and visiting in homes, but communication with a translator pales in comparison to sharing a one-on-one conversation. A friendship formed through a translator has a wall, a secondhand understanding. There is always the concern that something is lost in translation. It is not personal, not intimate, not adequate for what my heart desires to build with the Maaban women. Sometimes while in Doro I want to cry over the inability to really "talk" and listen to them.

Here in Africa, especially in Sudan, the term language barrier has a far deeper meaning than it did when I lived in the States. Yet even without words, we share a common humanity and much can be communicated without words. Smiles and handshakes transcend cultures. Easily read is the look on a mother's face when her baby smiles at her, the hungry expression on the face of a dirty child when she begs on the street, the pain in the posture of an elderly person walking stooped over, the glow of relief on the family's face when a child wakes up from a cerebral malaria coma, the happy embarrassment on the face of a teen girl when she is asked about her new husband, etc. I hope I become more adept with the non-verbals--both interpreting them and communicating them--while I still do not know well the words to say.