The Universal Language Of Struggle

Fall comes early here. Already, the leaves have turned, yet I didn't realize it until I saw children in the central garden frolicking in the piles of fallen yellow vegetation. Language and culture don't matter when it comes to youth and the natural playground. Some things are just universal. These shared qualities are what I've played off here.

Learning a language is a struggle. It doesn't matter how many other languages you know or how quickly you can pick it up, there will always be that beginning period when you know that the majority of what you say is grossly incorrect grammatically and is most likely mispronounced as well. All you can hope is that – much as I try to pick out words here and there in the lines spoken to me to understand the message – your audience can decipher your transmission. Some may think that the coming Mongolian winter will be the biggest challenge during my Peace Corps experience. However, painful as it may be, the punishment of the cold can be balanced out with yet another sweater, camel-hair leggings, and an Arctic sleeping bag. I can't put a cable-knit sweater (even one with yaks and reindeer dancing) on my language skill. There will always be that struggle phase.

Just as I'm learning my new language, the students, the staff, and the faculty at my school are all learning English. Mongolian youth are especially shy about making mistakes, so even though many know some English, they're embarrassed to try to use it. Today, I met the 40-something members of the high school student council. I gave my usual simple Mongolian speech about my name, my favorite subjects and sports, and the fact that I'll be working with them for the next two years. While the grammar is fairly accurate (thanks to using it so many times), I know that my pronunciation is still questionable. Each student then got up and had to introduce themselves in English. For the most part, it was just their names and grade levels, but some added favorite sports and subjects to display their skills. I could see that almost all of them were very shy about this task, but it made me happy to see them all trying. And so, I did what I felt was the best thing thing to do...

I improvised a new speech right there and utterly embarrassed myself, which was exactly the point of the exercise. Waving my dictionary in the air, I declared that I always carry it around and that I know that every time I speak in Mongolian, I make mistakes (I had to pause the speech while looking up that word), but that's absolutely okay. When they speak English, they're going to make mistakes too, and that's okay. However, when they speak English, mistakes or not, the fact that they're trying makes me happy. It was a beautiful message that was projected so terribly into the masses, that my counterpart somewhat inched her way into my babbling to clarify the statement in Mongolian to the students and to grant me a chance to stop.

Whatever...now they know that I'm a beginner in their language? I'm pretty sure they already knew that when I gave them blank looks whenever they said something to me. No harm done to my ego. I just hope my display hit home.