to quentin : cold season + lobiri
Jesse at language training
We’re entering into “cold” season, which is much warmer this year because of climate change. Mornings are almost chilly, but by 9, it begins to get warm. There’s not even any hope for rain to cool things down, at least not until next May or June when rainy season starts back up again.
Can you imagine not having rain for half the year? And then, when it finally does come, having the skies open up and pour buckets of water down on you. It’s one of the most incredible forces of nature I’ve ever witnessed. I already miss it.
I’ve been taking Lobiri lessons from a neighbor. You already know it’s pretty much impossible, with sounds that sound identical that all mean different things. There’s no single word for “to be”, which drives me insane. Everything is tonal: there are over 9 different sounds that all sound like “o”. The grammar structure is baffling. It’s all completely maddening.
Yet, I’m slowly improving. I’ve started to be able to have short conversations in Lobiri with my neighbors and I can almost communicate with the tantie that I share a courtyard with. I regularly shock people that are visiting Tioyo that only expect me to speak French. It’s all very thrilling. If you ever come visit, prepare to be impressed with my Lobiri skills. I’m pretty proud of how far I’ve come.
It comes at a price though. I can feel my French slipping, which is a large part of why this letter is in English. My French was never amazing to begin with, but I find myself so much more self-conscious and nervous in French than I’ve ever been. Mostly everyone speaks Lobiri in village and Burkinabé don’t regularly hear anglophone accents so they sometimes have serious difficulty understanding me, which makes me question my grammar and lexicon, even if it was already perfect to begin with. It’s all pretty debilitating. It’s disappointing to feel my French degrade so much, especially when I have worked so hard for it the past three years and it has become such a clunky, hard-earned part of who I am.
Tioyo marché
I called home one time last time and talked to my mother for the first time since July. I struggled to form sentences in Chinese during that conversation, stumbling over my vocabulary, wincing at my own pronunciation. I hated how difficult it had become to talk to my own mother in the language I had been born into. Even English, the only language that usually feels effortless, feels clunky these days. I used to pride myself on my writing skills, but now, nothing feels right.
How fucked up is it that I running further and further to “find myself”, that I pour my soul into all these languages, only to feel like I’m losing essential parts of myself as I do so? Perhaps this is just growing up.
I’m scared that one day I’ll lose the ability to communicate with my family in meaningful ways. You’re lucky, you know, that you share a mother tongue with your family. Growing up speaking English, I already sometimes (always, honestly) felt that my Chinese was insufficient for my family. I sometimes wish that I had studied Chinese in college instead of French.
Too late for such thoughts, I know. I’m already here. And God, how wonderful it is to be here. Apart from these language anxieties, I am very happy here, despite all the little daily things that I might complain to you about. I was talking to Cameron, a volunteer that’s extending for a third year, and he expressed it so well. “I have less than $300 to my name and I feel so rich and I’ve never felt so happy.”
Every day here is a new adventure and I look around sometimes in utter disbelief that this is my life. I feel lucky to have this experience, to have my little house, to have Zelda, to have long hours to read books and write, to have been placed in the beautiful southwest. I think I’m more in love with being here than the work I’m doing at the collège, but perhaps that will change soon. I want to be completely satisfied with my work—isn’t that all anyone wants from life, ultimately?
Most of all, I feel incredibly lucky to feel so loved and supported, even when I’m thousands of miles away from home. The volunteers I’m here with are an incredible group who understand this experience better than anyone else in my life right now. Baya, Jana, and Julia are always there for me when I need them. And of course, there’s you. I feel incredibly loved and cared for; it keeps me sane.
Preparing ginger juice for Sibiri’s wedding
Clara in a Diébougou hotel room
Christmas celebrations in Tioyo
Gaoua marché
Miriam at her brother’s wedding
