May 27, 2011 -- Kabiye

It kind of amazes me how much language has not been an issue. Of course Esowe is so important to our ability to communicate, but with the women we can still talk and build relationships even across our different languages. My basis for comparison is always Honduras, but when I’ve been there I feel like language is ironically even more of a barrier when I can speak and understand. It’s as if I’m more hesitant to try to communicate in Spanish because I’m afraid I’ll mess it up. Here it’s understood that we don’t speak this language, at all, so it’s OK to not know…if that even makes sense. But still we are learning some Kabiye phrases! Here are some new ones:

Con care – Good work
Ezuma – How many/much
Tono – food
Loale – morning greeting
Alaafia – response to greeting (it seems like this is a phrase you can throw around anywhere and it will work)
Yoooo – response to alaafia (also something people just throw around)
Labale – Thank you
Bijazima – How is it?
Minowase – midday greeting
Blabiche – See you tomorrow!

Yesterday the women gave us Kabiye names. That was really special for all of us. Mine is Esosoolam, which means “God loves me.” I like it better than anyone else’s :) I’m not sure how they assign them or come up with them, but we all got them…I feel like it was a rite of passage though, like now we’re officially accepted. Our relationship with them is different than it would be if we could speak to them, but maybe in a good way? Maybe our bond is even stronger?