Kiswahili and motorbikes
Of all the languages I've almost learnt, Kiswahili remains my favourite. Kiswahili, as it properly should be named.
Once, when I was living in Mafikeng, in South Africa, I wrote to the Times of London, complaining about their spelling of the town I inhabited (there was a conference of some African Importance taking place there concurrently). They spelt it Mafeking. It's just a transposition of two vowels, but in not doing that, a continents worth of respect is denied. Mafeking is the colonial spelling. Mafikeng is the name that the people there gave it. Mafeking remained the 'official' spelling until the South African elections of 1994, when TPTB reverted to the Tswana spelling of Mafikeng. The 'eng' ending is a feature of Tswana.
I recieved a shitty reply from the Times of London, stating that they had a policy of referring to the names of towns in Foreign, according to the English spelling. I feel that they they have dropped this policy recently, with respect to the growing economic power of China, with Chinese names. If Mafikeng should ever be in the papers again, check it out. And if it's not right, please complain. This is a matter of principle. Mafikeng is the primordial hellmouth, but still deserves the name that the people living there give it.
So, Kiswahili it should be, to give the language its proper prefix according to the noun class that the name of language should be placed within.
For online Kiswahili references, please visit The Kamusi project. It had appeared to be terminally broken a few seasons ago, but looking at it tonight, it may be up and running again.
I had an affinity with Kiswahili, relatively, that I had with no other language. I apologize if the story I am relate has already appeared on LJ, but it's a fairly stock story, and I have no idea how often I've used it.
I had been drinking the previous night, with my HofD in Dar es Salaam, and, as I remember, the rest of the Science department on campus. The imported teachers lived in separate appartments on a closed campus which led to much spontaneous partying. I can't even remember how this came about; one person was at my house, and then HofD's bestest mate turned up, and we decided to go around to his, and the last thing I remember really clearly was the fried gammon steaks with fresh pineapple at three in the morning. It's the tropics, so you process the alcohol out of your body quicker, so, under other circumstances, there would have been no problem. My memory loss is due to something else, though.
I went to drive my motorbike into the high school campus the next morning at 7.00 am. When I say 'motorbike', I mean a Honda C90, which was perfectly adequate, normally, for the 3 Km between the place of living and the place of work. I was probably a bit hungover, and I chose to take the coastal route; by the white sand beaches and the mangrove swamps. As I went around the bend in the road, I found myself heading directly towards a white combi van, on the wrong side of the road. Trying to avoid it (I remember this much), I went to the inner side of the road, away from the small cliffs down to the mangroves. There was a pothole in the side of the road, and I hit at a big enough speed to bend the front wheel and lose control of the bike (I deduced the bending afterwards). I then ended up heading across the road towards the cliffs, and, strangely, a lampost. The last thing I remember (and this has taken some years to return) is thinking that I had to drop the bike before I went over the cliff. So, I deduce, again, I did.
The rest has been pieced together from what other people told me. I did manage to drop the bike, on top of me, with the hot exhaust on my foot, and the stand piercing my leg. I gave my head enough of a bang to knock me out, and I hit the ground with my left elbow, which was smashed to bits. While I was unconscious, someone came along and stole my shoes. This kills me. I loved those shoes. Someone else noticed the body under the bike, and stopped - I have never met this person, although other people I know at the time knew him. He stopped other traffic, and one Asian family recognized me from the school.
I have vague memories of being loaded into the back of a pick up truck, then taken out, and put into a car, and somebody saying "She works at the International School." I have a memory of pulling into the Doctor's house, and him running out, looking panicked, saying "take her to the school clinic." I have memories of not knowing who I was or where I was. My memory is still dodgy today - I use strategies other than straight remembrance to get through life. I remember being amnesiac, though. As we drove through the school gates, I saw one of my tutees, a particularly troubled girl by the name of Khatra (meaning Fifth - she was the fifth child to a Somalian family) who was worried enough to ask me what was wrong. The feeling of memories returning is like balls clicking into holes in those little balls into holes games you get in Christmas Crackers; the memory tumbles into place. I remember getting my memory back. I had to get enough memory back to reassure Khatra. That's the strangest thing. Always a teacher.
The doctor strapped my arm to a log, and sent me down to the Aga Khan hospital for an X-ray. Although they weren't saying, they had already decided to send me back to the UK. Two reasons: Firstly, I needed blood, and there was no guarantee about the non contamination of blood in Tanzania. Secondly, the doctor had assessed the state of my elbow as needing surgery beyond that which could be done in sterile conditions to match western standards, in Tanzania. The headmaster at the time, Bill Powell, former anarchist activist turned harsh headmaster, questioned me as to my mother's phone number. I swore at him. Swearing was to be a feature of this accident and recovery, but Bill took it personally. Our relationship never recovered. Bill was a political animal, as was I, although I didn't realise it at the time, and I was manoevered out of the school a few years later, after he had left and returned. He didn't like me. I think he's a bastard, but then, I would.
After the X-ray, I was shot through with Happy Drugs, and booked on a KLM flight out that night, with a nurse, all courtesy of the medical insurance. The nurse had not been back to the UK for several years (having married a Tanzanian and having no money), so there was a silver lining to all of this for her.
I was given a front seat, with space available for drip and a nurse, or nun, with or without singing guitar, alongside. It was totally Airplane. I really don't remember much. Drugged, remember. When we got to Schipol, the bruises and swellings had kicked in - I think I had a hairline fracture on the left side of my face, and there were certainly dead nerve endings there for a number of years. Although capable of walking, I was loaded into a wheelchair and transported across Schipol to the City Hopper that would take me to Cardiff airport.
On which plane, several concerned stewardesses came up to me to check that I was OK. I pointed out that I would continue to be OK, so long as my nurse kept giving me the drugs she had in her handbag. I may have used the phrase "illegal drugs," ironically. Drugged, remember. They nodded, looked concerned, and went away.
At Cardiff airport, no such consideration. I was allowed to limp onto the tarmac myself, dressed in black flowing skirts and flip flops. In December. We had to go through customs. They searched my bags, the bastards, asking pertinent questions, and ignoring the log strapped to my left arm. The jokes I made about illegal drugs? Unwise commentary. Don't make jokes about illegal drugs to people who are paid to report them to customs.
My elder sister had recently broken both of her wrists in a motorbike accident, so my mother was becoming inured to this. She met me off the tarmac, and drove me into Cardiff Royal Infirmary. I limped in. "Goodness," they said, "what's happened? Get a wheelchair!" I sat in the wheelchair and was not allowed to get up for six weeks. "I've had an accident," I said, and gave them the X-rays. "The Aga Khan?" they said. "Where's that." "In Tanzania," I said.
Turned out that the worst was not the elbow, but rather the toe. The burn from the exhaust necssitated skin grafts, and, due to the delay, I was pre-gangrenous, where the stand had pierced the muscles of my left leg. It all got fixed, or as fixed as it can be. It involved mutliple drips and several operations.
One of which I woke up in, swearing about not being back in Tanzania, in some kind of symmetry. I was a horrible patient. People came and visited. John Stapleton and his new girlfriend came and brought me the first Pratchett book I was to read. The Lockerbie bombing happened, and people looked embarassed when I ranted about the safety of Boeing (I was later to be proved right, although I can't be arsed to link). I was allowed out for Christmas: I think they thought that that would be easier on the nurses, although I got on very well with the nurses. My mother had just acquired a puppy, and we spent most of the time curled up on the sofa, watching television. My mother drafted in mick_the_moon to look after me at some point, when she went gallivanting. The puppy ate all of the calendula ointment he'd brought to help with the bruising.
I went back to Tanzania after three months. I learnt Kiswahili faster and quicker than I've ever learnt a language, in the six months that followed. I have a memory of instinctive understanding of a language's structure. The facility with Kiswahili is gone now, but again, I have the memory of being able to learn a language. So, there's a memory of two things; being able to understand a language, and the language itself. Weird.
If I were to return to Tanzania, I'd get the Kiswahili back. I am not a linguist, and my access to words and vocabulary is totally dependent on context. But this memory of being able to learn language has helped me a bit in recent years, with, say, French, when I've needed it.
So, I can't really rant about Kiswahili. I can rant about why I was, once, able to learn language, though. And I have.
Once, when I was living in Mafikeng, in South Africa, I wrote to the Times of London, complaining about their spelling of the town I inhabited (there was a conference of some African Importance taking place there concurrently). They spelt it Mafeking. It's just a transposition of two vowels, but in not doing that, a continents worth of respect is denied. Mafeking is the colonial spelling. Mafikeng is the name that the people there gave it. Mafeking remained the 'official' spelling until the South African elections of 1994, when TPTB reverted to the Tswana spelling of Mafikeng. The 'eng' ending is a feature of Tswana.
I recieved a shitty reply from the Times of London, stating that they had a policy of referring to the names of towns in Foreign, according to the English spelling. I feel that they they have dropped this policy recently, with respect to the growing economic power of China, with Chinese names. If Mafikeng should ever be in the papers again, check it out. And if it's not right, please complain. This is a matter of principle. Mafikeng is the primordial hellmouth, but still deserves the name that the people living there give it.
So, Kiswahili it should be, to give the language its proper prefix according to the noun class that the name of language should be placed within.
For online Kiswahili references, please visit The Kamusi project. It had appeared to be terminally broken a few seasons ago, but looking at it tonight, it may be up and running again.
I had an affinity with Kiswahili, relatively, that I had with no other language. I apologize if the story I am relate has already appeared on LJ, but it's a fairly stock story, and I have no idea how often I've used it.
I had been drinking the previous night, with my HofD in Dar es Salaam, and, as I remember, the rest of the Science department on campus. The imported teachers lived in separate appartments on a closed campus which led to much spontaneous partying. I can't even remember how this came about; one person was at my house, and then HofD's bestest mate turned up, and we decided to go around to his, and the last thing I remember really clearly was the fried gammon steaks with fresh pineapple at three in the morning. It's the tropics, so you process the alcohol out of your body quicker, so, under other circumstances, there would have been no problem. My memory loss is due to something else, though.
I went to drive my motorbike into the high school campus the next morning at 7.00 am. When I say 'motorbike', I mean a Honda C90, which was perfectly adequate, normally, for the 3 Km between the place of living and the place of work. I was probably a bit hungover, and I chose to take the coastal route; by the white sand beaches and the mangrove swamps. As I went around the bend in the road, I found myself heading directly towards a white combi van, on the wrong side of the road. Trying to avoid it (I remember this much), I went to the inner side of the road, away from the small cliffs down to the mangroves. There was a pothole in the side of the road, and I hit at a big enough speed to bend the front wheel and lose control of the bike (I deduced the bending afterwards). I then ended up heading across the road towards the cliffs, and, strangely, a lampost. The last thing I remember (and this has taken some years to return) is thinking that I had to drop the bike before I went over the cliff. So, I deduce, again, I did.
The rest has been pieced together from what other people told me. I did manage to drop the bike, on top of me, with the hot exhaust on my foot, and the stand piercing my leg. I gave my head enough of a bang to knock me out, and I hit the ground with my left elbow, which was smashed to bits. While I was unconscious, someone came along and stole my shoes. This kills me. I loved those shoes. Someone else noticed the body under the bike, and stopped - I have never met this person, although other people I know at the time knew him. He stopped other traffic, and one Asian family recognized me from the school.
I have vague memories of being loaded into the back of a pick up truck, then taken out, and put into a car, and somebody saying "She works at the International School." I have a memory of pulling into the Doctor's house, and him running out, looking panicked, saying "take her to the school clinic." I have memories of not knowing who I was or where I was. My memory is still dodgy today - I use strategies other than straight remembrance to get through life. I remember being amnesiac, though. As we drove through the school gates, I saw one of my tutees, a particularly troubled girl by the name of Khatra (meaning Fifth - she was the fifth child to a Somalian family) who was worried enough to ask me what was wrong. The feeling of memories returning is like balls clicking into holes in those little balls into holes games you get in Christmas Crackers; the memory tumbles into place. I remember getting my memory back. I had to get enough memory back to reassure Khatra. That's the strangest thing. Always a teacher.
The doctor strapped my arm to a log, and sent me down to the Aga Khan hospital for an X-ray. Although they weren't saying, they had already decided to send me back to the UK. Two reasons: Firstly, I needed blood, and there was no guarantee about the non contamination of blood in Tanzania. Secondly, the doctor had assessed the state of my elbow as needing surgery beyond that which could be done in sterile conditions to match western standards, in Tanzania. The headmaster at the time, Bill Powell, former anarchist activist turned harsh headmaster, questioned me as to my mother's phone number. I swore at him. Swearing was to be a feature of this accident and recovery, but Bill took it personally. Our relationship never recovered. Bill was a political animal, as was I, although I didn't realise it at the time, and I was manoevered out of the school a few years later, after he had left and returned. He didn't like me. I think he's a bastard, but then, I would.
After the X-ray, I was shot through with Happy Drugs, and booked on a KLM flight out that night, with a nurse, all courtesy of the medical insurance. The nurse had not been back to the UK for several years (having married a Tanzanian and having no money), so there was a silver lining to all of this for her.
I was given a front seat, with space available for drip and a nurse, or nun, with or without singing guitar, alongside. It was totally Airplane. I really don't remember much. Drugged, remember. When we got to Schipol, the bruises and swellings had kicked in - I think I had a hairline fracture on the left side of my face, and there were certainly dead nerve endings there for a number of years. Although capable of walking, I was loaded into a wheelchair and transported across Schipol to the City Hopper that would take me to Cardiff airport.
On which plane, several concerned stewardesses came up to me to check that I was OK. I pointed out that I would continue to be OK, so long as my nurse kept giving me the drugs she had in her handbag. I may have used the phrase "illegal drugs," ironically. Drugged, remember. They nodded, looked concerned, and went away.
At Cardiff airport, no such consideration. I was allowed to limp onto the tarmac myself, dressed in black flowing skirts and flip flops. In December. We had to go through customs. They searched my bags, the bastards, asking pertinent questions, and ignoring the log strapped to my left arm. The jokes I made about illegal drugs? Unwise commentary. Don't make jokes about illegal drugs to people who are paid to report them to customs.
My elder sister had recently broken both of her wrists in a motorbike accident, so my mother was becoming inured to this. She met me off the tarmac, and drove me into Cardiff Royal Infirmary. I limped in. "Goodness," they said, "what's happened? Get a wheelchair!" I sat in the wheelchair and was not allowed to get up for six weeks. "I've had an accident," I said, and gave them the X-rays. "The Aga Khan?" they said. "Where's that." "In Tanzania," I said.
Turned out that the worst was not the elbow, but rather the toe. The burn from the exhaust necssitated skin grafts, and, due to the delay, I was pre-gangrenous, where the stand had pierced the muscles of my left leg. It all got fixed, or as fixed as it can be. It involved mutliple drips and several operations.
One of which I woke up in, swearing about not being back in Tanzania, in some kind of symmetry. I was a horrible patient. People came and visited. John Stapleton and his new girlfriend came and brought me the first Pratchett book I was to read. The Lockerbie bombing happened, and people looked embarassed when I ranted about the safety of Boeing (I was later to be proved right, although I can't be arsed to link). I was allowed out for Christmas: I think they thought that that would be easier on the nurses, although I got on very well with the nurses. My mother had just acquired a puppy, and we spent most of the time curled up on the sofa, watching television. My mother drafted in mick_the_moon to look after me at some point, when she went gallivanting. The puppy ate all of the calendula ointment he'd brought to help with the bruising.
I went back to Tanzania after three months. I learnt Kiswahili faster and quicker than I've ever learnt a language, in the six months that followed. I have a memory of instinctive understanding of a language's structure. The facility with Kiswahili is gone now, but again, I have the memory of being able to learn a language. So, there's a memory of two things; being able to understand a language, and the language itself. Weird.
If I were to return to Tanzania, I'd get the Kiswahili back. I am not a linguist, and my access to words and vocabulary is totally dependent on context. But this memory of being able to learn language has helped me a bit in recent years, with, say, French, when I've needed it.
So, I can't really rant about Kiswahili. I can rant about why I was, once, able to learn language, though. And I have.