"Are We Getting Each Other?"

After spending two months in Kenya, there are still many things that I don’t understand. A lot of that probably comes from the language barriers. I don’t speak Kiswahili, Kenya's national language, or Kiluhya, the local language in Khwisero. English is Kenyans’ third language, and western Kenyans use English on a daily basis. However, they don’t get many opportunities to practice making full sentences in English with foreigners. Western Kenyans often use words in Kenyan English that mean different things than those in American English and vice versa.

If I think I understand what someone says, it becomes easy to think that they are always “getting me,” too. Especially because I am the white person with American English and as such the Kenyans sometimes assume that I have better communication skills than them. Upper-level education often makes students think they need to speak in complicated ways and use ivory tower words or silly analogies. So it is not always true that westerners have better communication skills. Have you ever noticed how so much of a college education is learning the language of your particular discipline? Or how each discipline uses slightly different vocabulary to explain the same concept? Because I'm not an engineer and a lot of our projects include lots of engineering and engineers, I often notice this trend when students throw engineering vocabulary at Kenyans, stuff that even I would not understand without access to the internet. 'Cantilever' anyone? The truth is, even though I am trying to be more aware of it, I do it too, except with medical words.

For the most part, the EWB volunteers who have been working here in Khwisero for a while, myself included, are improving at speaking simply and clearly. It’s critical that we do our best with that because it’s a little bit embarrassing for some of the Kenyans to admit they don’t understand. All of those opportunities for lost communication can lead to disastrous results. My personal strategy to minimize that is to explain myself to most western Kenyans in at least two different ways, speaking carefully and using as many Kenyan language-isms as I can. I also ask questions that allow me to check we are “getting each other.”

Here are some western Kenyan English-isms:

“Are we together?” Do you understand what I’m saying?; Are we on the same page?
“Pick” pick me up; take me; take an item
"Isn't it?" Correct?; "non?" in French
"Slowly by slowly" Gradually
"Are you just ok?"
"I am just around" I don't need any public transportation

There are other funky differences, which seem to be a combination of differences in word choice and sentence construction.

e.g. If I wanted to say "Would it be ok with you if we pay the invoice for ballast on Monday?" I would say "I was thinking I will be able to pay on Monday. Is it possible?"


(Photo by Katie Ritter)