Horizons magazine is published by Presbyterian Women (PW) the national women’s organization of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
Issue link: http://horizons.epubxp.com/i/521232
May/June 2015 21 inhabited islands of Vanuatu. To complicate matters even more, both E nglish and French were introduced a s colonial languages, to be tediously learned in school. A national lan- guage never developed in Vanuatu itself, but came about in the mid- 1800's when the people of Vanuatu were enslaved to work in the cotton and cane fields of Australia. Workers had been taken from dif- ferent islands and, because of their differing languages, could not talk to each other at all. But in Australia, they were thrown together, so a new language developed. Bislama started as a pidgin or simplified English, with a largely Australian vocabulary grafted onto a Melanesian grammar structure. Bislama is delightfully easy for native English speakers to learn, and our daughters, aged two and four at the time, were fluent within six months. It took Lora and me longer, but we could function pretty well within a year. Lora could chat with neighboring wives, either while washing laundry on the back porches of our little compound or while pick- ing lice from kids—including our own—while they napped on their mothers' laps during the hot part of the day. She went on to teach kindergarten in Bislama, and to train kindergarten teachers, as well. I could understand, and gradually began to contribute, during faculty meetings. Bislama, though, is not the native language of the people. Yes, I could take care of my daily needs in Bis- lama, but to be fully welcome and fully accepted in the villages of the island of North Efate, I wanted to learn the local language, Ngunese, too. So several times each week I would walk the mile or so down the gravel road to Takara Village and take language lessons from my friend, Elder Albert. We met in the little Presbyterian church, a one- room, cinder-block building that also served as a storm shelter for the village during hurricane seasons. Elder Albert and I would sit together on a rough log bench, and he would try to drill basic words into my somewhat balky brain as the late Obs acle or Aid? BY MARILYN HANSEN I carefully formed the letters of the vocabulary words on the paper, checking frequently to see whether I was using the correct fidel (letter of the Amharic alphabet). Waiting for my ride to pull up on the busy street seemed a good time to do homework for my class at language school in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. As I was sitting on the slab of concrete, two boys in school uniforms walked toward me, curious to see what I was doing. A bit wary, they approached and stood a few feet away, watching. I held up the notebook for them to see more clearly, pointing to a word and trying to pronounce it. A larger pack of boys joined them, hearing the chatter that my pronunciation caused. Soon one grabbed my pencil to write a word in Amharic, asking me what it meant. Then another quizzed me. And another. By now I was completely surrounded, hidden from street view. I stood, my ride came, the boys walked away with huge smiles. I opened the car door smiling, realizing that language is sometimes not a barrier after all. Marilyn Hansen and her husband Rich served as mission co-workers at the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology. Bruce Whearty worked often with his language teacher, Elder Albert, during his first term of service (1992–1994) in Takara Village, Vanuatu. Photos courtesy of Bruce Whearty