Road to Rwanda----Letter Confusion

Repost from Facebook, May 12, 2017

 Chinese have trouble with "v" and "w". I don't remember struggling with this issue in Taiwan, but maybe I was speaking mostly in Chinese, and here I am using mostly English. When the students were introducing themselves at the beginning of the semester, many said they liked "mooies". I thought and thought about that one, and finally realized it was "movies". Another difficulty was the student who asked me about Easter "wiggles". Dances for Easter, like the "Bunny Hop"? Telling kids to sit still in church? I had her repeat it a few times, and even had trouble when she spelled it, because it was an unexpected word. It was "vigil". You can see how things can get so confusing.

However, there are always these kinds of difficulties for overseas workers. Do I have stories? In Zambia "r" and "l" are completely interchangeable. The house worker told me Paul had cut his foot on the grass. How do you cut your foot on grass? Glass. He also consistently told me that Paul was outside praying. As much as I wished that was true, it seemed unlikely at age 3. Playing. The funniest one was at election time....can you guess where this is going? The tv announcer stated that "At the last general erection, Dr. Kenneth Kaunda won. And the assembly all crapped." True story.