The lessons aim to cover the very basics of language but also touch on culture. That's how Wednesday's trip to practice our buying things vocabulary at Serrekunda Market very quickly became "let's get stuff for Benacin (meaning one pot - rice with vegetables/meat/fish) and go to Awr's compound for a taste of Gambian family life". It was quite a feast and the extended family in the compound were happy to show us how to cook, how to light a fire, how to mix wonjo (I think its hibiscus flowers) and baobab juices and generally host us wonderfully and with good humour at our many faux pas.
The compound is a village type set up, with a courtyard in the centre and single storey rooms and houses round the edges. There are goats and chickens in the courtyard, as well as spaces for cooking, washing, parking the car and, perhaps most importantly, sitting drinking tea under the mango tree. The people in the compound include Awr's family, her brother in law's family and a number of other children who are in town for school as their families live in villages. One girl is the first ever in her family to go to secondary school. There are also, as in any household with teenagers, various friends popping in. In the Gambia, a bit like at my Gran's house, when food is ready everyone is invited to eat. It is usually served in huge shared bowls which you pick bits from with your hand.
However, the deep end of learning languages is my new choir. As decisions go joining the church choir wasn't the most difficult. The process was something like: do I go to church? Yes. Do I need to be in a choir? Yes. Do I enjoy African music? Yes. Do I like having a link to the community beyond work? Yes. So here's an African church choir in your local community for you. Seems to tick all the boxes. So the decision is fine. Strategically perhaps joining a church choir in which most directions are given in a language you can only say hello in, and joining at Easter, one of the busiest musical times, was to pick a hefty challenge. Nightly rehearsals meant that Seikou from my compound said he thought I'd decided to go back to the UK!
Through listening, reading the context and saying "ndanke" (slowly) a lot I can at least begin to talk to and understand who is in the choir. Having met at least 200 people this week I've managed to offend most fellow choristers by forgetting their names within seconds. At least the music is familiar, or so I hoped. We started with Latin, so far so good. Then English, a hymn I didn't know but not difficult to read. However, there my luck ran out and we ran through hymns from across west Africa, with Jola, Fula (other tribes in the region), a bit more French and Creole making an appearance. At the end of the first rehearsal they asked me to introduce myself. I got as far as I could in Wolof which was pretty far (name, homeland, current home) for someone who was still excited because I managed to buy an orange without using English or pointing alone two hours earlier.
By the end of the week I'm much better at lip reading when singing so I can get somewhere near the sound and there's a lot of effort at choir to make sure I have a copy of notated music when there is one. Plus conductor rants seem to be pretty obvious whatever the language. "altos, where was that entry?" or "tenors, are you taking this seriously?" does cross the linguistic barrier pretty easily.
This Saturday sees a trip to Ndembe village. I have been nominated to give a vote of thanks. The village is Mandinka and Jola so we've worked out a speech in four languages; Wollof, Mandinka, Jola and Fula. If I could add English, French and Creole in it'd really round off the week of eight languages well. I just hope I don't mispronounce something to a horrific extent!
[photo by Rao]
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