A couple weeks ago I finally had the
chance to formally study Tonga, the language spoken here in Macha and
most of Southern Province. There are a few local dialects with
variable vocabulary depending on which part of the province you are
in, but the grammar is the same and one can be understood if you have
that down. Kind of like British English compared to US English.
Anyrate, MCC has three new couples coming into the country, two of
which will be based in Choma (the town just an hour away from Macha
where I go to shop), and the other will be our new country reps based
in Lusaka. The Southern Africa regional reps decided they should all
get some language study, and I was able to join also. Although my
co-workers in the hospital all speak English, the patients, most
young children and people in the villages around the area do not. It
has been frustrating to not be able to have simple conversation with
the moms I work with, the kids who come by my house and people I run
into walking in the area.
It actually was good timing after 15
months of hearing Tonga and learning a few words and phrases, I was
able to understand better how they all fit together. The main trick
that was hard for my brain to wrap around is that verb endings don't
change. The root, which comes at or near the end of the “word”
has many prefixes which let you know, who, when and to whom or what
the action is being done. In short, the heart of the
word/phrase/sentence is towards the end, the beginning is the fine
tuning. This is a characteristic of bantu languages which was quite
foreign to my minimal language experience. Before arriving here, I
spoke only English and Spanish. The other difficult issue for me is
that there are over 15 classes of nouns in Tonga. Each class has its
own prefixes for singular and plural and other words in the sentence
must also have a corresponding prefix. That issue I am just going to
have to fumble with for awhile. This time I focused on verbs and
sentence structure.
Most educated adults in Zambia speak at
least 4 or 5 languages. Many children speak 2 or 3 before they finish
school. There are over 70 languages in Zambia, English is the
Official language of the country, but there are 8 Nationally
recognized languages of which Tonga has the second largest number of
speakers. The Ministry of Education's curriculum is printed in these
8 national languages plus English up to grade 3, from there all
educational materials are in English. You can imagine the cost this
puts into any publication of news or health information campaigns for
example when so many languages are spoken. The reason most adults
speak so many languages is the mobility of the educated class. You
may grow up in one (or two depending on your parents' jobs) areas of
the country and learn the language there. Your parents may be from
another area and speak a different language in the home. Or your
parents may be from two different regions adding another language to
the mix. Then, when you apply to school, high school, technical
school or university, you may be selected to attend a school in
another region of the country. There are very limited slots for
higher education. You usually apply to several places and go where
you get selected. The nursing school here in Macha usually has over
400 people apply for the 50 spots each year. Though you will be
taught in English wherever you go, your classmates will be from many
different regions, and as you shop and go to church in the
surrounding community, you will learn that language also. Then, if
you train as a teacher or nurse for example, the government will post
you wherever they need you, irrespective of your language abilities.
Therefore you may need to learn another language in order to
communicate with your students or patients. Then there is a trade
language in Zambia, Nyanja, that is used in the capital of Lusaka,
and many people can speak at least a bit of that. So, for instance,
if one of my co-workers is Bemba and the other Lozi and one or the
other of them isn't yet fluent in Tonga, they may speak English with
each other, or they may speak Nyanja. In the beginning they all
sounded the same to me, but now I can at least tell if someone is
speaking Tonga or another language.
I had a week long intensive course
together with Jan and Kajungu. Kajungu is Tanzanian and Jan lived in
Tanzania for 11 years, so they are fluent in Swahili and familiar
with other bantu languages. Even though they were brand new to Zambia
and Tonga, that put us on a similarly equal footing. Their
familiarity with Swahili allowed them to understand the basic
structure of Tonga. It would have been the same for me, for instance
if I was trying to study Portuguese, already knowing Spanish. We
studied 4 hours a day for 5 days with Uncle Jebby. Uncle Jebby has
worked with the Peace Corps for the past 15 years helping orient
their 100 volunteers a year to Zambian culture and language. He has
mostly taught Bemba, Nyanja and Kaunde, but has recently moved to
Southern Province and is beginning to teach Tonga. He was a great
teacher. It was his first time teaching such an intensive course and
he was impressed with how well we did. Usually he deals with people
brand new to the country and things move much slower. We focused a
lot on conversation. It is so nice to speak with someone trained in
the art of speaking to language learners. He would speak slowly and
repeat things and use simple words and phrases while also trying to
keep the conversation real.
The hymns at church suddenly have more
meaning and I can get the general gist of what people are saying to
me and I am trying hard to use simple sentences on a daily basis and
look over my notes each night. I am so happy to have had this
opportunity and window into being able to speak with people in their
own language. Now I just have to keep the self-discipline going. I am
supposed to get together with Uncle Jebby for a few follow-up
appointments, so that should be good also.
This past weekend I rode my bike out to
Halwiindi village near Nemfwe to visit my co-worker Cliff's family
again. I figured it would be a good place for me to practice my
Tonga. I brought along a few of the beginning reader books from the
Ministry of Education's Literacy program. I keep them at my house for
the local kids to read and also use them myself to help with my Tonga
learning. 8 year-old Mary and 4 year-old Chris were there to read
along with me. After a quick wash of the hands, they must have spent
two hours looking at the 5 small books I brought along. After reading
them to them a couple times, Mary put herself to memorizing them.
Chris just enjoyed holding them (often upside down) and making up his
own stories. Books are so rare in Zambia, even in the schools.
Teachers usually write most things on the board and students copy
them. Even the young men at the house(late teens, early 20s) were
picking up the books and trying to read them.
I was able to eat lunch with Chinyama,
Cliff's wife, this time, because Cliff was at work. That was really
nice to sit and chat with her a bit. She has very good English, but
was happy to oblige me with a bit of Tonga and helping me practice a
bit. She finished grade 12, but did not do so well on her exams. She
says she needs to resit biology and math to be able to apply to
nursing school, which is her dream. She is hoping to resit this next
year. Currently Chinyama volunteers each morning as a cleaner at the
nursing school. She has been doing this for over a year now in hopes
of getting a job when one opens up. Her husband, Cliff, worked almost
three years as a volunteer before getting his position. Volunteer
here does not mean you come in once or twice a week. It means you
work on a daily basis. There are many full-time volunteers at the
hospital. People are so desperate for work they will do this. It
often pays off, but not always. Remember, it is a 40 minute bike ride
to Macha from their village. Cliff bikes to work, but Chinyama walks.
Chinyama says she likes to read, so I told her I would bring a few
books next time and she could pick one to borrow.
