Euphoria

by Lily King

I have found a language teacher. Karu. He knows some pidgin from a childhood spent near the patrol station in Ambunti. Thanks to him my lexicon has over 1000 words in it now & I quiz myself morning & night though part of me wishes I could have more time without the language. There is such careful mutual observing that goes on without it. My new friend Malun took me today to a women’s house where they were weaving & repairing fishing nets and we sat with her pregnant daughter Sali & Sali’s paternal aunt & the aunt’s four grown daughters. I am learning the chopped rhythm of their talk, the sound of their laughter, the cant of their heads. I can feel the relationships, the likes & dislikes in the room in a way I never could if I could speak. You don’t realize how language actually interferes with communication until you don’t have it, how it gets in the way like an overdominant sense. You have to pay much more attention to everything else when you can’t understand the words. Once comprehension comes, so much else falls away. You then rely on their words, and words aren’t always the most reliable thing.