Oh these past couple weeks had amazing ups and downs, but i will write on that later. Now i feel like i must brag a little, if only to keep from being completely depressed by lack of progress.
Generally now my Seereer is pretty good. Not great, there are still a ton of things that i dont get, but its good and i can get points across, talk to children, talk to older people, make small talk, speak at meetings, summarize what others have talked about, and sit and just listen to others talk idly or argue and generally get what people are talking about. When i notice this, it makes me rather proud of my progress.
Now when a stranger comes by and greets me and does the surprised 'Nana seereer?!', 'you understand seereer?', and I give my usual grin and answer 'nanaam ondik', 'i understand a little', then anyone around me, family or otherwise, is in a rush to say 'no, no! he understands everything! he understands very well!'. Grin, shrug, move on.
Now, there are times still when i am utterly at a loss. There was a big arguement in my village yesterday, a very unusual event, and that looked like it might come to blows. I had and still have no idea were all yelling about but it seemed like everyone was mad at everyone else. Also, i am slow to pick up on the ,ore colorful expressions and the metaphores and certain connotations are lost on me.
Yesterday though (before the fight), I was sitting with a bunch of the old men in the village and they were talking to another man who was passing through. 'Does he understand seereer better than the former volunteer,' he asked. Then they all thought and after a bit one said 'the other volunteer played and talked with children, he knew seereer, but not deep seereer and he did not learn all seereer by talking to adults and old people. Ndiouma, (me), talks to children too, but to adults more. He wants to learn all of seereer very well. He is learning but soon he will know all of Seereer very well!' maybe thats a bit much, but it made me feel warm and fuzzy. Its coments like this that help me get through the day!
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since you understand it, do you speak it at about the same level? that was always my problem with foreign languages, i understood what ppl were saying but couldnt talk back without sounding mentally retarded...
ReplyDeleteBeen looking into identifying the snake with the lizard in its mouth from your pictures and so far stay away from this one < http://www.jcvi.org/reptiles/species.php?genus=Causus&species=maculatus > bc it is second most common cause of snake-death in Senegal (if you cant see it, is similar color to yours with weird dark ovals on its back) and definitely stay away from these < http://www.teraechis.cz/Web_somalia/_private/Monografie_Echis_ocellatus.htm > which are the leading cause of snake-death (pic is large brown snake with black stripes across its back with vertical white dashes on them)... dude ive seriously spent the last 4 hours trying to find this damn snake and cant find a thing... but so yeah thats prolly good cause im guessing it was nonvenomous...
ReplyDeleteYeah, I understand it at a fairly resonable level. In that, if people are talking to me, and talking kinda slowly and deliberately, I can totally understand them. If i want to say something simple or mundane it is no problem, sometimes I can make long speeches or participate in discussions with no problem. But frequently I get the feeling that I sound like a 5 year old with a speech impediment. I really am trying to work on getting myself understood better. Stuttering never helps either.
ReplyDeleteAnd wow, I am impressed by your comitment to random snake research. I havent seen any recently, prolly cause all the frogs are gone and I havent been out field walking too much. But i am pretty positive that the snake i usually see is nonvenemous, but i still would rather not get bit.