Officially Delinquent

Last week I opened an e-mail from Federal Student Loan Services with a seemingly benign subject heading only to find in all caps, bold face, and red font of at least size 26, that I am officially DELINQUENT in my student loan repayments. I have only been required to start repaying my loans as of last month. And I did. Or at least I thought I did. Twice. Before you start freaking out (dad, mom, credit bureau fearing friends), I have 28 more days before I am reported to the credit bureau and charged late fees. That means 28 more days of clicking the hell out of the Submit Payment button on the website, and sending ever more desperate e-mailed pleas to the faceless correspondent in charge of dealing with delinquents, confused persons and general idiots. That is also 28 more days of re-typing my bank details and squinting at the routing and account numbers in my checkbook wondering where in the name of Stafford I have gone wrong. That means 28 more days of cursing Commerce Bank and the migraines they have given me, asking what did I ever do to you besides deposit loyally in my account and pour my coins in the counting machine with the encouragement of Penny, the squeaky-voiced blond pig-tailed cartoon character bouncing around the screen complimenting me on all the change I’ve collected. I hope she chokes.

Being labeled delinquent has come at a bad (or maybe fitting) time, when I’ve resigned myself to the fact that my Sesotho language skills will never advance beyond the level of a rude two-year old. That goes for my grammar and vocabulary, anyway. As for my accent, I am on par with a stroke victim. Beyond the compulsory greetings, please and thank you, my language skills subsist of giving commands to toddlers and shouting out names of nouns at random. It’s a cruel joke that my tongue trips over itself whenever I try to pronounce the key word in the phrase “I don’t understand,” so I can’t even indicate my ignorance sufficiently- not that the Basotho have any trouble figuring that out.

In the Sesotho book I ordered from Barnes and Noble, I learned such useful phrases as “Where might I send a cablegram?,” “I’ll have the lobster,” and “What time does the [non-existent] train to Buthe Buthe leave?” Finding it fairly useless, I bought a twenty-year old Peace Corps Language Manual off of my Zambian co-teacher, and I can engage in the following conversation:

Volunteer: Peace be with you mother?
Nurse: Yes, greetings brother.
Volunteer: How are you?
Nurse: We are fine. How are you?
Volunteer: We are fine, there is no mistake.
Nurse: That is alright father.
Volunteer: Is the hospital full?
Nurse: Very much.
Volunteer: Are all these people sick.
Nurse: They are patients as you see them.
Volunteer: What is wrong with this man?
Nurse: He was struck by lightening in the mountains.
Volunteer: He is weak.
Nurse: Too much.
Volunteer: What is wrong with that woman?
Nurse: She has a severe stomach ache.
Volunteer: What did she eat?
Nurse: She drank poison.
Volunteer: But why?
Nurse: Because her husband ill treats her.
Volunteer: This is bad!
Nurse: It is truly bad.
Volunteer: What is wrong with that child?
Nurse: He has hiccups.
Volunteer: Such a small child.
Nurse: Yes, father.
Volunteer: What is wrong with these young men?
Nurse: That one was bitten by a snake, this one was beaten by a stick, that one was stabbed by a knife on the buttocks.
Volunteer: On the buttocks?
Nurse: Just there father.
Volunteer: What was wrong?
Nurse: He was fighting with his girlfriend and had pinned her down. His girlfriend’s sister came and stabbed on the buttocks with a knife.

So really, if you come to Lesotho and wish to send a cablegram, eat a lobster, or ride a pretend train, I can arrange things for you. If you are struck by lightening, plagued with a spastic diaphragm or receive an unfortunate wound to the buttocks, I can describe your ailments to a medical professional. Additionally, if you are attacked by a pack of small, hyper children I can tell them to “Hey you! Listen!: Stop! Quiet! Sit down! Sit nicely! Go away! Don’t touch! I don’t have any combs!” If I knew the word for sweets or money, that last phrase might be more useful, but alas, I know how to say combs, (chairs, diapers, doors . . . lobster) and other items the average child wouldn’t demand.

When looking around for a tutor, I couldn’t find a Sesotho-speaking teacher at the school with the time or patience to deal with me, and I didn’t really feel like searching the big wide world for a stranger either. So I ended up arranging for the Head Custodian at the school to tutor me. I asked a teacher what she is paid to tutor students, and she said 50 rand, about 5 dollars. I asked M’é Lineo, my tutor-to-be, if that would be acceptable and she said, “No, anything less that 20 rand” (about $2). That felt like a ridiculous price to pay someone for an hour’s worth of one-on-one teaching, but while trying to convey that to M’é Lineo, she insisted that she would teach me from her heart and not for money, and I insisted equally forcefully that her time is very valuable to me. In the end, she accepted the 20 rand, and didn’t say anything when I changed it to 30.

And from then on out, our lessons have been convoluted threads composed of a few major activities. One is having M’é Lineo translate random words and phrases to use at the orphanage. Thus, I can ask if the baby bawling into my hair is hungry, tired or ill, but I can’t understand a response beyond “yes” or “no.” (Those responses, by the way, are, respectively, “E”- like the Canadian eh, and “Ae,” like the American Uh-Uh.) I can ask for Rose’s bottle, when I have her in the crook of one arm, because, “E, she is hungry” while Lesole is in the other arm, puking on my neck, but I can’t say that her bottle is the one with the green top. I can only request, “Please bring the bottle of Rose,” and say, “green!” “up!” and nod vigorously. And while I can only understand the slowest, simplest Sesotho, I cannot understand baby Sesotho. When I see a child in distress, I invariably ask “ke mang?” “Who is it?” I mean, implicitly, “Who hit you/took your toy?” I could ask “keng?” “What is it?/What’s the matter?” but the more comprehensive (and gurgled) response would be far to over my head to offer any insight. When you ask “Ke mang?” at least the children can point.

Our Sesotho lessons are also largely composed of me explaining to M’é Lineo how I want her to teach me. She is perfectly happy to answer questions and to translate whatever I desire, but she won’t correct my pitiful pronunciation, most especially my cheap replacement of the clicked “q” with a regular “k” sound. She doesn’t understand the purpose of engaging in pretend conversations in which she is a shop owner and I am a customer. And if she doesn’t have answers for all of my nagging whys about grammar, she starts to sweat. I’ve told her a dozen times, if there is no reason why the “L” in “Lipoqo” actually sounds like an “L,” rather than a “D” like the “L” in her own name, she should just tell me there is no reason. It’s like she is a linguistic fatalist; in her mind, every phoneme and grapheme happens for a reason and we, as mere vehicles for language, have no business questioning or even trying to understand it.

Regardless, this tirade is meant to be directed at myself and not at my amazing tutor who is beyond patient and who I am lucky to be able to spend any time with her at all when the normal school dictates that we do not cross paths. But the fact remains, the number of months I’ve spent in Lesotho is not reflected in my language skills, and if anything, my conversations are more charades- reliant than ever.

Writer David Sedaris relates the following about his efforts to learn French:
“I’d hoped the language might come on its own, the way it comes to babies, but people don’t talk to foreigners the way they talk to babies. They don’t hypnotize you with bright objects and repeat the same words over and over, handing out little treats when you finally say ‘potty’ or ‘wawa.’ It got to the point where I’d see a baby in the bakery or grocery store and instinctively ball up my fists, jealous over how easy he had it. I wanted to lie in a French crib and start from scratch, learning the language from ground floor up. I wanted to be a baby, but instead, I was an adult who talked like one, a spooky man-child demanding more than his fair share of attention . . . On my fifth trip to France . . . things began to come together, and I went from speaking like an evil baby to speaking like a hillbilly. ‘Is thems the thoughts of cows?’ I’d ask the butcher, pointing to the calves’ brains displayed in the front window. ‘I want me some lamb chop with handles on ‘em’”

If I ever make it to the hillbilly phase of my Sesotho language acquisition, I’ll throw myself a party and let you all know.