That's not what I meant

This was a story in one of Kenya’s main daily newspapers recently.  I chuckled. And as I thought about it more I became more amused at how this might play itself out, when frisky soccer fans from around the world visit Brazilian prostitutes, each practicing their limited English skills to conduct a transaction that requires some fairly specific vocabulary that won’t be listed in a travel guide . 

My own experience with learning a new language is that the progression starts out something like this: first you learn just enough words to survive and get around – things like “Thank you” and “how much does it cost” or “pull the bus over, I have diarrhea.”  The next level of proficiency is a danger zone, when you start using the language more often and feel reasonably sure that you said something sensible, but in fact you did not say something that made sense, and you have no idea what was said back to you anyway.  So you humbly accept your embarrassment and try again. In most instances, these moments are benign and harmless.  Exhibit A:  last week, I asked for a pumpkin in Swahili when I meant to ask for a watermelon. No biggie. 

But in other instances, these mistakes when speaking another language can result in prolonged embarrassment, the kind that becomes fodder for story-telling  by locals around town.  Exhibit B:

In Swahili, the word wasassi  is a term for “poachers” and wazazi  is “parents”.  You can probably see the potential problem by a failure to clearly annunciate the “s” or “z” in either word.  I’m pretty sure that in November 2011, I welcomed all of the poachers to Parents Day at Gir Gir Primary School, which is an awards ceremony held on the last day of the school year to recognize the achievements of their students. Ironically, poaching has escalated dramatically in this region of Kenya over the past 18 months and it’s possible there were, in fact, a few poachers in the crowd, who were probably puzzled by the warm welcome I extended to them (see note below about poaching). 

Exhibit C:  the spelling of the word for grandmother and chicken in Samburu (different language than Swahili) is the same: nkoko (pronounced en-ko-ko). The difference between the words is based on which syllable you emphasize. Seems like a dangerous situation for Grandma if someone hits the wrong syllable when talking about dinner preparations. 

Speaking of chickens – and let me warn you, this next paragraph might get uncomfortable for those of you who identify as fairly innocent and/or godly – the meaning of the English spoken word “cock” in Kenya simply means a rooster. There’s no understanding of that word to be a reference to, ahem, anything else. So it’s not at all unusual for someone in Kenya to say, for example, that they were awaken in the early morning by a cock. In a conversation at a Samburu village last week, I was told that there were no recent chicks born in the coop because the hens lacked access to a cock. Seems pretty accurate regardless of how you interpret the word, in that instance.  My point is if it were Kenyan prostitutes learning “technical sex vocabulary” like the ones in Brazil, well, things could get weird real fast if there isn’t a shared understanding of the meaning of some terms.

So consider this Brazil scenario where you have people from around the world speaking limited English to prostitutes who also speak limited English, and some of the English they know has different meanings to different people, and well, seems like you’ll have clients leaving that sex room thinking that Brazilians do some crazy stuff, and Brazilian prostitutes thinking the same thing about their clients from around the world, when really all along neither party wanted a chicken or grandma involved at all.

** Regarding my reference to poaching:  poaching of elephants and rhinos has increased tremendously throughout sub-Saharan Africa over the past 1-2 years. A market for ivory has re-emerged, primarily in the Far East and especially China and Indonesia. 

Many countries, including Kenya, have undergone massive infrastructure projects over the past few years such as paved roads and improved electricity lines and cell phone networks.  These are important developments for economic progress, particularly for the poorer regions of these countries where people live on a less than a dollar a day.  

While improved infrastructure provides tremendous benefits, the additional cell phone coverage and paved roads have also made poaching more efficient and less risky. Poachers can communicate with each other about the whereabouts of anti-poaching patrols and conservation rangers, and they can get ivory to the coast for export more quickly than ever– sometimes multiple days sooner than before.  In conversations I’ve had with people around here, the poaching problem is almost as big now as it was at its height in the 1980s. An entire herd of 11 elephants was killed not long ago in the southeastern part of Kenya, bringing the total to more than 350 for all of 2012 in Kenya alone.

In the 1980s, when poaching last occurred at these levels, it was curbed by the world’s consumers getting smarter and eliminating the demand.  Kenya is working with the Chinese government to educate its population. NBA start Yao Ming even made a visit in the past year to record public service announcements to be aired in China. I often feel like we forget about our power as consumers and instead wonder why government doesn’t do something to address an issue. In the case of ivory, consumers unknowingly banded together and nearly eliminated its demand. That needs to be repeated and led primarily by our fellow global citizens in the Far East, but it emphasizes the point that our decisions as consumers have implications for the health of our planet.  Our world’s ecological well-being is not government’s responsibility alone. It doesn’t lie mostly with China or India either. We share this responsibility as a population of seven billion. Every day, I hope we remember that as we go about our lives.