Is Your RPCV Exhibiting Errant Conversations Syndrome?

Just recently, Peace Corps released the latest in a string of public service announcements (PSAs) commemorating the agency's 50 years of service to the United States and many parts of the world.  One PSA in particular captured my attention because it did an excellent job of portraying the random anecdotes I've been sharing with friends and family when I come across something that reminds me of my time in Morocco.

When greeting people for instance, I've been shaking people's hand as you customarily do here in the States, but now I proceed, as I did in Morocco, to place my right hand near to my heart to show my respect or to express how dear that person or that encounter is to me.  In Morocco, it was second nature to follow the handshake with a tap to one's heart, and despite being back home with old friends and in a completely different setting, my body almost involuntarily follows the same process.  Sometimes I catch myself in the act or others point it out, and explaining the gesture is often a topic of an errant conversation.

As far as language, I miss speaking darija.  The Moroccan Arabic dialect was fun to speak.  Phonetically speaking, it was a challenge to sound off the "ع" (aain) or "غ" (ghain) or the back of the throat "ق" (qa) or even the emphatic D, T, or to differentiate between the airy "ه" (similar to the 'h' for hello) or the raspy "ح" (similar to the sound you make to check if your breath smells).  During the first few months of service, combining some of these sounds seemed impossible, but after some time my tongue somehow came to accords with the sounds my ear was finally able to recognize and distinguish and slowly began to mimic them 'to the t'.

Even more challenging was understanding the hidden or indirect messages in Moroccan speech.  During training we were told that Moroccans used a ton of what our cultural and language facilitators called "God phrases" as part of their everyday language.  So instead of saying goodbye, they would say llah y3nk (God help you).  To thank someone for a good deed or to ask for a favor, they could say 3afak (the equivalent of please), but in most cases they would say llah yrHm l-walidin (God bless your parents) and my all-time favorite, preceding or following any statement calling for or mentioning any future action, insh'allah (God willing).

When I first arrived in site all 'gun ho' about starting a new project and building community support for it, I spoke to a number of people and tried to persuade them to join me in addressing some of the expressed needs of the community, but towards the end of our meetings, a large number of people would simply finish off our conversations with an insh'allah.  While it is true that we do not know what will happen tomorrow and we have little control over the future, being told that it was all up to God's will seemed a little fatalistic to me.  Later on though, I learned that the use of insh'allah was not only a way to show respect to the all-knowing God, but it was also used to say 'no' without offending the other person or to express that something is unlikely to happen.

Later on when people recognized that my speaking abilities had improved and I had demonstrated some fundraising capacity, some of the same people that had inshalla-ed me before began proposing their project ideas to me.  Unfortunately, by then I had already made commitments to other groups and had enough work for the rest of service, so without offending them, I respectfully inshalla-ed them back.

Back in the states, some people have proposed going to such and such an event or organizing something, and I've involuntarily blurted out insh'allah and I'm not doing it out of respect to God (although I respect It greatly), but mainly because the event or the activity does not appeal to me.  Sometimes I catch myself and sometimes others catch me saying it and wonder what the heck came out of my mouth, but then I explain that I do not know if I can or will be able to because it truly is up to God.  I say that I can't rule it out, but that I'd rather defer to God because no one really knows what the future may bring.  Unfortunately, this answer does not fly with most of my friends who still interpret this answer as some sort of newfound religious piety--not at all consistent with my beliefs and lifestyle--and not as a cordial way to say 'I am really not that interested'.  Then again, most U.S. Americans prefer directness, which is a cultural aspect that I've had to get readjusted to and that is often another subject of an errant conversation.

See the minute-long PSA titled "Conversations" below:    



Errant Conversation Syndrome (ECS) is common among all RPCVs.  Most exhibit symptoms throughout their lifetime.  They speak about their projects, language challenges, cultural differences, past bowel movements, pros and cons of Peace Corps, and a host of other service-related experiences.  At this time, there is no known "cure" (nor should there be) for this phenomenon, but I hear that active listening and a non-judgmental attitude are always welcomed.  And who knows? You may learn a thing or two from all these random pieces of information.  Thanks for reading.

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If you'd like to learn more darija, please visit the Friends of Morocco page on Learning Moroccan Arabic. I've also selected a few books on one of the recommended book widgets.  BssHa to your learning!

To watch other Peace Corps PSAs, please visit: http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.media.psa

Tribute to the Sympathetic Interlocutor

I want to dedicate this entry to all those sympathetic interlocutors in the world.  You know who you are.  When you've heard someone struggling to vocalize their thoughts, you have been there to fill in the blank.  You're The living thesaurus ready to jump in with the right word at the right time.  You are there to interject a little bit of context to explain what may seem like someone else's odd or offensive behavior.  You are the bridge builder, the peacemaker, and the best friend any Peace Corps volunteer can have.

My Darija-language tutor Ali and I on one of our many sessions

So what is the character profile of a sympathetic interlocutor?  How do you become one?  My guess is that the individual has had to struggle learning a foreign language at some point in time, and perhaps has had to adapt to customs and traditions different than his/her own.  This struggle has forged a sense of compassion for those who are deep in the struggle.  The sympathetic interlocutor feels the pain and the sense of helplessness because he/she too has been ridiculed for conjugating incorrectly, mispronouncing, not inflecting properly, and saying or doing completely inappropriate things without even attempting to do so.  He or she has also felt out of place and sometimes alienated by the strange culture surrounding him/her and bewildered by what seems to be an indecipherable mumble jumble.  He or she has felt the humbling experience of coming from an environment where he/she felt in control of his/her domain to another setting where he/she is overjoyed by the accomplishment of the simplest of tasks.  

The sympathetic interlocutor loves playing nonverbal charades and often cares more about communicating than communicating correctly.  He/she will often mimic you as you try to contort your lips, tongue, and entire face to say whatever you're trying to say.  If he/she happens to be your language tutor, he/she will repeat the same word a hundred times until you finally remember it the 101th time.  


Fortunately, I have come across many sympathetic interlocutors, but I have also met a number of not so sympathetic ones.  The non-sympathetic ones will sometimes laugh, ridicule, and will show no patience whatsoever.  I am encouraged when a sympathetic interlocutor tells the unsympathetic ones to respect the struggle of the language learner and urges them to empathize.  I am also grateful to the sympathetic interlocutors for introducing me to his/her circle of friends and family and sharing a bit of history about why, in his/her point of view, people in his/her corner of the world do what they do.     


I certainly could not have gotten this far in my Peace Corps service without the help of countless sympathetic interlocutors.  One of the many sympathetic interlocutors is my tutor and friend Ali.  What's amazing about Ali is that he taught himself English.  He learned from a few books, lots of American films, and from interaction with past Peace Corps volunteers.  He graduated with a degree in sociology, which he studied in French, another language that he speaks impeccably.  I am grateful to know him, to have been his student, and to have shared many a cultural tid bits that only served to reaffirm how similar we all are.  For all you sympathetic interlocutors, keep up the hard work of translating, clarifying misunderstandings, resolving disputes, and just making the world a more harmonious place to live in.  Thank you and God bless you all.  


P.S. You may ask why the formal "sympathetic interlocutor" title.  Our Peace Corps language proficiency exam rubric had that titled scattered throughout the various levels and sub-levels of language proficiency.  For example, at the beginner level it states that it will take a sympathetic interlocutor to have the patience to figure out what the heck is coming out of your mouth.  At the intermediate, you're making coherent sounds, but it will take a sympathetic interlocutor to put your sounds into comprehensible sentences.  At the advanced level, your language is flowing, but your English-structured Arabic may not make a lot of sense from time to time so it takes a sympathetic interlocutor to translate your Arabic to a more culturally-adaptable format.