Free to worship but not able to speak

Since my last post we’ve gotten out into the city more. We went to church at Bethel Temple in Bessikoi on Sunday, which is the church my parents have been working with to grow, reach the lost in this neighborhood and train young people for the church’s future. It was a time of celebration and conviction.

During worship we danced and sang loud enough for the entire cité to hear, which is something I’ve missed. Here, there is no shame in openly celebrating your salvation, whether that means yelling from the rooftops songs of praise, or dancing in the middle of the church’s aisles and up to the pulpit.

We could tell everyone was tired though. Especially at the beginning, not everyone was standing and singing. My father interjected worship and basically said this is a time to rejoice! He gave the microphone back to the singers, went out, and literally started dancing in the middle of the room. Everyone was smiling then — how could you not smile after seeing your white pastor get down during worship? He definitely motivated the crowd.

VIDEO: Sunday, July 22, at Bessikoi’s Bethel Temple during worship. 

And though we’ve had great moments since arriving, my biggest difficulty has been the language barrier. I knew this would be the case, but since landing it is more evident than ever how communication is affected when you can’t speak to others, especially in a culture already so different from your own. When nothing else in two cultures align and your worlds are already so drastically apart, language can bring two people together.

One aspect of this lack of communication that sticks out to me is how others who do know the language perceive those who do not. I know that I am a confident and intelligent person, but when I’m trying to communicate in French, I feel like I’m three. And I know that is how I’m perceived as well.

But I know I’ve been the person on the fluent side of communication before and have looked at others who aren’t fluent in English as — not less than — but not the same, when they couldn’t communicate in America.

A few years ago, an Italian family visited us in Missouri because the father of the family graduated from the school my father worked for at the time through correspondence. They flew in for his graduation, and it was our job to facilitate them for a few days.

He and his eldest daughter knew English pretty well, but the mother didn’t even know how to greet us. And throughout that week, I found myself feeling sorry for her as she couldn’t communicate. I perceived her as not as competent as I’m sure she really was and is.

I knew she had an entire life back in Italy as a mother, friend, employee and community member. She was a fantastic cook and I’m sure had a large group of support around her back home. But in America, this was different. And this is how I feel in Abidjan when I can’t communicate with our friends from church, local business owners and community shapers.

The other difficult part of this language barrier is the need to read other people and interview them. This is a large part of what I do as a journalist: observe, and through those observations and communication (nonverbal and verbal) know how to carry out an interview or an assignment.

I took a nonverbal communication class and from this learned that a majority of our communication is not transmitted verbally. The University of Pennsylvania conducted a study on how we effectively transmit messages to one another. From their findings, 70 percent of communication is from body language alone, 23 percent is tone and inflection and only seven percent is from the spoken word!

These findings can make it seem like gesturing and animated facial expressions can get you where you want to go in an interaction with someone from another culture, and this may be true. But sometimes, I just want to tell someone a story verbally, or ask questions out of curiosity without having to shrug and finally say, “Sorry, I’m an English-speaker.”

One feature I want to write is on a Vietnamese woman, Rosa, who lives down the street from us and owns a nem shop. Nems are traditional Vietnamese spring rolls, fried and served with lettuce and mint. They’ve been a favorite food in my family for decades and Rosa is a friend of ours.

But Rosa knows no English and only enough French to get by running her business. She can take orders and greet customers but a lot of our conversations involve a lot of gesturing, even for those who are fluent in French.

So to interview Rosa and receive powerful quotes, I need a Vietnamese translator. I want to tell her story. Her ex-husband recently died back in Vietnam, and this shook her. And not long after, thieves came into her shop and beat her up.

Finding a translator for Rosa may be impossible here, but I’m going to search throughout the next few months, language barrier or not.

OCTOBER UPDATE: Rosa returned home to Vietnam for mouth surgery and to see her family. Her restaurant’s doors showcase signs that declare she will be gone for two months, but we’re secretly hoping to stays in Vietnam with her family where she is safer.

— Sarah