One Day, Five Languages: New Year's Day

Languages have never been my strong point, but I felt that if I am going to be spending a lot of time in the Gambia, I really should make an effort to learn the language. However, this is not as straightforward as it might seem! Because the Gambia used to be a British colony, the official language is English, but on the whole, people can only speak English if they have been to school; as school is not compulsory here, there are many people who don't speak English, especially in the rural areas. The Gambia has lots of tribal languages, but Mandinka and Wollof are the two most widely spoken, and many people can speak several tribal languages, as well as English, and often French as well. Lamin speaks at least six languages quite fluently, which puts my halting attempts at French very firmly in the shade. You might think that living here would make it easier to learn one of the languages, but in practice, everyone here tends to mix the languages – I have often heard them start a sentence in one language and end it in another! As a further complication, most of Lamin's family on his mother's side speak Karoninka, which as far as I know is purely an oral language.

However, I decided I would try to learn Mandinka, so I could communicate easily with most people, and Karoninka so I could talk with Lamin's family, including those in Senegal. I downloaded some sound files from the internet for Mandinka, and played them on loop in my car. For the Karoninka, I have just asked lots of people to help me, and try to keep a notebook handy for jotting things down. It doesn't help when the grammatical structure of sentences is very different from English (think Yoda from Star Wars and you will have some idea!). I am trying very hard to learn a new phrase each day, and use the languages whenever possible. The family here at Balaba are great at helping me, and the local children (although a bit startled that I can speak Mandinka at all!), are also very encouraging – one little boy suggested I visited all the neighbours so they could help me!

Gambians really love it when you have a go at speaking the language, and it seem to be a national game to throw phrases at you hoping to confuse you (which in my case isn't difficult!). I usually find a bit of pantomiming of extreme confusion produces gales of laughter, and I don't often mind, although sometimes if I'm feeling a bit tired, and it's the umpteenth occasion that day, it can be a bit wearing.

Anyway, I thought I would share with you how I ended up using five languages in one day, which just happened to be New Year's Day.

We started the day with a visit to our neighbour's wine tapping 'spot', in the forest next to the beach. Yanna lives in the next compound, and speaks no English, but last time I was here, he made it his business to teach me some phrases, and repeated them every time he visited (which is very frequently). Some other 'customers' were there, so I did what I usually did, and tried to greet them in Mandinka – I can now greet people, reply to them, and ask a few basic questions such as their name etc, and can generally reply to theirs. 

The way through the forest to find palm wine.

You can see the sea on the way to the 'palm wine spot'.

A photo of me with the other palm wine customers.

On the way back, we stopped at the local shop, which is run by a Senegalese man, who came out and talked to me in French – it's amazing how much school girl French I can dredge up when I need to!

After lunch we decided to go and visit friends in Berending, the village to the east of Balaba, a short drive away. We stopped first at a compound of one of our friends, and his father came out to greet us. He sent a child to find me a plastic chair to sit in, and greeted me in Wollof – sadly my knowledge of Wollof is limited to three words – 'Nangadef' (How are you?), Manfi (Fine), and Jerrajef (Thank you), but I did manage a reply! However, most people in Berending speak Karoninka, so I ended up having quite a few conversations in Karoninka. We went on to another compound, where once again, a child was sent to find me a chair, but this time they dragged out a huge padded armchair, complete with enormous cushions – it does feel a bit incongruous sitting outside on the 'street' in a massive armchair! Here we spent a very lovely afternoon, with lots of children playing, goats and pigs wandering past, people washing dishes (and some small children), and drinking palm wine and ataya (green tea).

It's traditional on New Year's Day for the Karoninkas to play the rest of the village at football, and our sitting place was on the main route to the football ground, so dozens of people dressed int heir best finery, went past us on the way to the match. Football is a big event here, and most of the village turned out, including lots of the women who provided the cheerleading and dancing!

The football match.

Some of the spectators

The women and children provide the cheerleading and dancing!

The match ended as the sun went down, so we went back to our chairs for more refreshment. Around 8 o'clock, we decided to leave, but then (as often happens), plans changed, and it was decided to kill a pig so we could have a barbeque. I waited in the pitch darkness with some of the locals whilst the men went off to kill the pig – I didn't really fancy going along to see, and after an age, they returned with various bits of pork to cook the next day. We drove back to Balaba on narrow tracks through the 'bush', with the vegetation brushing the car on both sides.

So, as well as having a fantastic day meeting loads of different people, I also ended up speaking five languages: English, French, Mandinka, Karoninka and Wollof – not bad for one day!