My English Tale...
Jenelle's childhood tale on J. Star's blog reminded me of something which has absolutely nothing to do with it. My English Tale.
I assume all of you have, by now, gathered that am no native English speaker. Bilingual by birth with a French speaking father and an Arabic speaking mom, I've always loved foreign languages. By age 7, I spoke two languages and 2 dialects. An Ivorian one (from Côte d'Ivoire) proper to my ethnic group, called Malinké and Zarma, a dialect spoken in Niger.
We were living happily in our Francophone Africa when my dad shipped us all to Mauritius Island on plane (? is it planed us or aired us instead??). Mauritius, a multi cultural island. Official language: English. No one speaks English. Creole instead.
I've got to get back in time a little bit here.
A year before coming to Mauritius, we stayed in Côte d'Ivoire where I attended Form one (7th schooling year). The teaching medium is French and English is studied as a foreign language. We're all ranging from 11 to 12 years old and are taught the English alphabet. We are given homeworks: memorize the colours of the rainbow in English and translate them, translate "ball", "baby", "balloon"... It was grand! I loved it. By the end of the year I'd learned how to say hi-how-are-you-am-fine-thank-you-please-orange-omelet. They were impressed, my fellow class mates. I got full marks!
On our way here, we had to transit by Kenya. At the airport. Officer is talking to my dad. "rattatatattattaa, rattattattata?" (sounded like a question). My dad. Stares at officer. Shakes his head. Looks up and down, right and left. No inspiration. Finally "Tomorrow!". That's the only English word he knows, my father.
At the hotel. Breakfast, lunch, dinner: we ate omelets and drank orange juice. Thanks to me of course. Imagine, we would have starved instead. By the way, we were supposed to stay 2 days only in Kenya but ended up there for a whole long week. Language barrier consequence? Maybe.
I remember one day at lunch, they had this buffet ouvert. We were overjoyed. We were finally going to eat something different. We pilled up the plates. People smiled at us. We we so cute. Then this guys comes over to our table and pointing to our plates says "Muslim NO". I was happy, I understood. I told my family, this man says "Muslim NO". My father looked happy not. What we'd mistaken for boiled potatoes with yummy buttery sauce was pork. Not kosher.
So, we end up in this multicultural island with its coming from India, China and Africa inhabitants all speaking Creole. Am registered in a Lycée where the teachers thought I had to repeat Form One. They believed I couldn't make it in Form Two and will be failing anyway. The rector said no. Bless him. He said, Form Two it shall be.
Am in Form Two with an English luggage of hi-how-are-you-am-fine-thank-you-please-orange-omelet. The teachers felt sorry for me. Kept apologizing for not speaking french then asking me to tell them about Africa. Do people starve to death? What sort of house do you live in there? What do you eat? Do lions roam around the streets? Do people walk naked? I had no idea what the hell they were talking about. I decided I was never going back to that school. I did. The next day. And the day after.
My first test I scored 4/100 in Math and 12/100 in English. I was happy. A mauritian girl had scored 10/100 in the same test. Second term exam I scored 23/100. Good. Third term. I wasn't worried about all subjects like I was about English. You fail English, you pass in all, you repeat the class.
We were given this picture essay to write. You get 4 or 6 pictures which tell a story you're supposed to write about. The picture depicted this boy. Mum sending him to buy something. He goes to a river to fish instead. He falls in the river etc...
My vocabulary was desperately limited. I didn't even know how to translate "tomber" (to fall). So my Essay was so weird I kept on laughing the whole time I was writing. It's good, when you can laugh at yourself.
An extract as I remember " Boy, mum say go....... Boy go water......... The boy ploof in the water......"
Exams over. Results not yet out. I'm at home. Doorbell rings. I go check. My English teacher. She wants to see my father. I think: "that's it. I've failed. She'' probably advice papa to put me in some french private school." I was wrong. She came over because she couldn't believe how I'd managed to be fifth in the class of 38 pupils.
I downloaded some John Legend. I'll tell you who he reminds me of: William Devaughn. You've probably never heard of him, but he did soul music back in the 70s. Kinda like Curtis Mayfield, if you know him.
-Suley (Comment this)