Domo Arigoto, Mr. Roboto

Monday was a linguistic trainwreck. The kind you just can’t look away from. There is a new Salvation Army pastor in the village, originally from Mozambique. He wants to learn English. One of my teachers, who is very active in the church, volunteered me. Sure, why not?

I walk up to the house, which is right behind the church and built by (of course) the donations of Salvation Army churches in America. So now you know where the $5 you paid for that awesome Halloween costume last year went.

I walk in. “Sanibonani!” I say. “Yebo.” He replies. We are polite in siSwati. I turn to his wife. “Ninjani?” (how are you?) “Si…khona??” she replies. How odd. She sounds suspiciously like me in her confusion. “Oh, she is also from Mozambique, she is just learning siSwati.” Her husband tells me. “Oh, I’m sorry! Avuxeni!” I am both contrite and proud of myself for remembering correct greeting in xiTsonga. (Later, a teacher tells me that I did not in fact remember the correct greeting in xiTsonga. Avuxeni means good morning. It was currently 2:30 in the afternoon.). Once again, Mrs. Pastor shrugs her shoulders and shakes her head. “No,” her husband tells me again, “we are from Mozambique. Portugese only.” I am a moron.

So we progress to the lesson. “What do you want to learn?” I ask naively. (The condition in which I ask most of my questions, come to think of it)

“English.”

“Oh, okay, well, we can do that. But we need a place to start. So what parts of English do you want to focus on? Conversations? Sermons? Travel? Reading? Writing? We need a starting point. So what part of English do you want to learn the most.”

“No, just English. All of it.”

“Oh…kay…” Of course, as you can see he essentially already speaks English. Not perfectly, not smoothly, but functionally. So where do I start? We dance around a bit, we try to find a good starting point, a good teaching method, some way be can both leave this interview feeling like something has happened. The longer this goes on, the more doubtful that outcome begins to look. I have decided in my head that really what he mostly needs is practice with a native speaker, so why don’t we just hang out and chat for an hour a week or so. The blank, open notebooks and pencils hovering in the hands of he and his wife tell me that this is not their preferred approach.

So we abandon that approach for a bit, and he offers to teach me some Portugese. I can now say “Boa Tardi” and “Bom Dia” (good afternoon, good day) with reasonable accuracy. Five minutes later I forget how to say “I am thirsty” within 30 seconds of him telling me. I am still a moron.

Somehow, during all this mess, we discover that we have both taken a decent amount of French in high school. We switch to French. I begin mixing my siSwati and French, because its been about two and a half years at this point since my last French conversation. We say goodbye, and make plans to meet up again the next day, when I promise to have something actually prepared.

“A demain!” I say.
“A demain!” He replies.
“Abrigado!” calls his wife.
“Bye!”

Thirty minutes. Five languages. I start laughing hysterically, and don’t stop until I make it home.