liberian lessons

I seem to have made some kind of breakthrough.

Up until now, I've been speaking to my patients using only the odd phrase in Liberian English. The reactions were varied, some laughing heartily to hear this white girl try to speak Liberian, others staring blankly at my increasingly red face. So I would retreat back into my standard American English and get a translator to help me. But those of you who know me in the real world know that I'm something of a communicator. I love to talk and I love to be understood. It seemed like neither of those things were really happening.

I think it might have been partly because I thought that Liberian English was just an accent. That if I cut off the ends of enough of my words and always sounded slightly angry, they'd magically get me. It didn't occur to me until recently that this is almost an entirely new language, complete with its own horribly incorrect grammar. And when the Liberians talk about speaking English, they're not talking about the language we speak in America. It's something altogether different.

I figure the best place to start learning a lanuage is with kids. They don't laugh too hard at your mistakes, and they love to chat. B Ward is packed full of Liberian-speaking kids right now. They've overrun the place, much to my glee, and they all love talking to me. Abraham explains to me about his scarred hand and Charles asks me when we're going outside and Tenneh wants to tell me all about the movie they watched yesterday. And they, in turn, want me to tell them about every single thing I'm doing.

All this playing with children seems to have had an effect, because somewhere in my brain, a switch seems to have been flipped. When I walk onto A Ward to check on the VVF ladies, I'm greeted by a chorus of voices shouting Liberia Woman!. A new translator who I introduced myself to yesterday stared in confusion at me until one of the patients helpfully explained that that white woman can speak Liberian, at which point he laughed and agreed. She speak clear! I was able to translate for an anesthetist this evening with a patient whose card said he only spoke a tribal language.

My words are punctuated with odd gestures, strange noises and raised eyebrows, and for the first time since I've been here, I feel like I'm finally making sense.

I can be too happy. Which, I think, is Liberian for I never want to leave.