My First Language Success

I didn’t know before I got here and was thrown into a language filled with strange symbols, double letters, and weird intonations, but I suck at learning languages. I’m bad at building sentences, and for my entire first language test, I don’t think I used any verbs - ever. I said “I store” instead of “I went to the store”, “Dad farmer” instead of “My dad is a farmer”, and answered with one words responses as much as possible.

So, I take each little success. Anytime I can leave my host family without them looking shocked, scared, or mad at me, I consider myself at having communicated well. When I get to the store, and leave with what I wanted and at least some of my change, I consider it a success. Here, I want to chronicle my most impressive language achievement yet.

I was walking home from language lessons last week, and I saw a baby goat. As you probably know from my other blog posts, seeing a goat is no longer an exciting thing for me. However, this goat was an infant. I would guess he had emerged from the womb less than 48 hours before I cast my eyes upon him. He even still had a gross little dried out umbilical cord still attached.

I knew as soon as I saw this goat, that I needed to have a picture taking whilst holding said baby goat. I knew I could not rest until I had photo documentation of how ridiculously cute and young this kid was. However, catching a baby goat is harder than it seems. After a short race with it (I even ran in a backpack to attempt to catch it) I realized that I am not nimble nor spry enough to catch my prize. I had to rely on my language skills, and many Gambian children.

In English, I would have said;

“Children! Come here and listen to me! I need to request your services for a short period of time. I would very much like for you to engage in a short foot race with that baby goat. I would like for you to overtake him and, kindly and humanely, catch him and deliver him to me. Following the capture, I would like to hold the baby goat in my hands, and have some pictures taken with my camera. One specific picture I would like is one of me holding the baby goat as if I’m about to take a large bite from his side. I would also like my friend Caroline to be in the picture, pretending to dine upon the infant goat as well. As you can see, this picture is one of my highest priorities, so would you please do your best and run your fastest to gather him for me?”

In Mandinka, I said;

“N lafita baaringo!” which means simply;

“I want baby goat!”

As soon as I chanted that a few times and made a few feeble attempts at snagging the goat, those kids caught on, and it was better than a small town parade. Mother goat was leading the pack, followed closely by baby goat, followed closely by about 30 children, all running after each other, yelling, “N lafita baaringo!” They ran past the alkalo (village chief’s) house, around the block, and eventually, and triumphantly, delivered to me what I wanted.

The picture is hilarious. All thanks to my extensive knowledge of the Mandinkan language.