Although my job has consistently involved working approximately 50% of the time in French, I have recently noted a sudden surge of Swahili-work. As a result I now feel as though I am hovering three separate working mentalities. English is, of course, my primary means to communicate and carry out work responsibilities. It’s my native language, so instantly adapting to, explaining, and responding to client concerns / requests comes most naturally. Most refugees do not speak English as a native language, even if they have achieved near mastery (as have many Zimbabweans) so I have an automatic upper hand. I am linguistically limber enough to respond without concerted mental efforts to carefully filter my language. My work environment is obviously also in English, though curiously there are no native English speakers among the staff. All either speak Afrikaans or Xhosa as a primary language at home.
French frames my second distinctive work mentality. I completed a lot of interpretation work between French and English when I first began my internship, especially as I helped Annel to communicate with her francophone clients. Interpretation is quite a distinctive skill. Switching constantly between languages, especially the necessity of using one sense for one and another for the other (hearing French, speaking English) requires straddling sections of the brain and then instantly reversing the functions (hearing English, speaking French). It took me a few interviews to acquire basic competency of this skill, looking up a few discipline-specific vocabulary words, and adjusting my ears to the slightly different Afro-French dialects. Now that I primarily work with clients individually, however, I no longer use French within the domain of interpretation. I can carry out my entire interviews in French, only converting to English when explaining proper nouns and recording information on paper for client file records.
While pinpointing what language I will most likely be using based off of client country of origin and South African arrival date, I have even developed the usage of a handy initial linguistic device. French Canadians tend to greet strangers with a “Bonjour, hi” in order to determine the ensuing primary language of conversation, and in the same spirit, I greet my Congolese, Rwandan, and Burundian clients with a simple, “Hello, bonjour.” They then start talking to me in whichever language is preferable for them, some proud of their newly developed English language skills and wanting to test them out, others relieved to explain their troubles in a more familiar tongue. Regardless, working in French is my second work mentality. Over time I have developed particular response phrases, questions, and explications that differ slightly from my English versions. Now that I have fine-tuned my ears to African dialects of French, I find listening to clients explain their needs is often a simpler task for me if they are speaking French than English. The English proper nouns frequently pose problems, especially as they refer to areas of Cape Town or South African institutions with which I am already unfamiliar, but working in French is enjoyable, and second-nature. As with any foreign language, sometimes the words get caught up and communication is difficult; however most the time my explanations flow without problem, and often my slightly longer processing pauses (as compared to native English) allow me to choose more precise, professional, and appropriate language.
Working in Swahili is a completely different experience. I have had five semesters at MSU in rapid succession (two accelerated courses during last summer’s Summer Cooperative African Language Institute [SCALI]) and so I feel fairly comfortable navigating my way around the contours of the language. The CTRC has a three-page long intake form full of interview questions for new clients, and posing all these questions in Swahili takes a bit of thought but is not too much of a problem. Since I have been learning French for such a long period of time now, I have taken for granted and all but forgotten the intense learning curve associated with beginning to utilize language skills directly with native speakers.
In practical terms, this means that once refugee clients start trying to explain their situation in Swahili, in their own words, with native speaker grace / speed, and at any length, I struggle to keep up. Using my limited vocabulary, asking finite questions is not too difficult. Verbally drafting detailed explanations and understanding the details of their narratives is. To make matters worse, most of the clients that come in and wish to communicate in Swahili speak a drastically different dialect from the Congo and Rwanda than the Kenyan / Tanzanian Kiswahili Sanifu that I learned in the classroom. My linguistic shortcomings in Swahili create an altogether different dynamic in these situations than with Francophone or Anglophone clients. Firstly, I cannot even begin to explain the number of clients who have outright laughed at me when I have begun speaking to them in Swahili. It’s not that my accent or grammar is terrible (though of course I make my fair share of errors); they are just in shock that I possess any knowledge of their language. “HAHAHA Why do YOU know Swahili?” they ask. Whereas my fluent French conversations lead many refugees to believe I am either a South African who has mastered French or a Francophone European, my white skin and more ostensibly foreign accent in Swahili instantly mark me as an outsider. After their initial shock, however, clients’ reactions vary completely. Most veritably appreciate my effort to converse with them. Some begin explaining things to me at a pace that leaves me understanding approximately 40%. Others revert to first-month of Swahili 101 phrases, giggle gleefully at my successful responses, and then compliment me by saying “You speak Swahili very well!” From time to time the clients are just not satisfied with my efforts and attempt to find an interpreter all the same.
Mara kwa mara (from time to time) my Swahili skills hinder their ability to abuse the system. Certain clients attempt to use linguistic ignorance as an attempt to appear more vulnerable, feign understanding of anything, and receive increased assistance. Interpreters often collude, both conversing with the client in advance and manipulating answers to optimally benefit both parties. A few times I have interviewed a client in English then allowed them to fetch a Swahili interpreter when they could not sufficiently explain a story without informing them of my knowledge. In these situations, I could overhear the dynamics of the conversion and ensure that the client was being as truthful with me as possible. One time I made a client’s eyes almost bulge out of her head by responding in Swahili when she had been conversing with her interpreter and referring to me consistently as mzungu, a very lightly derogatory term for White people. I have otherwise had to rely upon my Swahili skills to explain the entire functioning of our food voucher system, to enquire about banking details, and to assess clients’ overall living situations.
The linguistic dynamism involved in my work has made my experience even richer than I could otherwise imagine. There are not too many jobs out there that would require such consistent usage of all my language skills (English, French, and Swahili). Via French and Swahili both, I feel as though I have really been able to reach out to refugees and accommodate their cultural comfort zones. I am not a native South African either; the clients and I are both outsiders (although many do not realize this). When I speak to them in French or Swahili, it often seems to ease the tension of my own positionality as “white development aid worker” by emphasizing shared linguistic background as a critical cultural node of mutual human understanding.
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