Learning Gulmancema

As I may or may not have mentioned at some point earlier, we PCTs have to reach an intermediate-mid level of French in order to swear-in at official PC Volunteers. This is also the benchmark for starting a local language. So, throughout training, we have Language Placement Interviews (LPIs) and our second one (the first was our initial language placement) was 2 weeks ago. I think I got lucky, or my interviewer felt sorry for me, or some combination of various favorable factors allowed me to place at intermediate-mid. PC now trusts that when I'm dropped off alone at a village in the middle of nowhere, I'll be able to get by and fend for myself with the amount of French I've learned in less than 2 months. Ah, the wonders of immersion language learning. But for me, the most exciting thing about reaching inter-mid is that I get to start my local language!

The Eastern region of Burkina is inhabited mainly by the Gormatche people, and they speak Gormatchma. Or Gulmancema, spelled in the language. Pronounced [gaulmantʃma] approximately. My IPA is a little bit rusty so that might not be very accurate or useful for you non-linguistics major readers. But anyway, it's exciting to start another language! And interesting because I'm learning it from French. There are only about 3 weeks left in training, so I'm guessing I won't be able to get too far in Galmancema, but hopefully it'll be enough to get by. Also, my site is a pretty large city so most people will speak French. In fact, my predecessor got by without much Galmancema, though he was only there for 1 year. Since I'll have 2 years at site, it would probably be helpful for me to learn the local language. Not to mention, it's just really cool to learn another language! Most of the PCTs and even some of the language teachers were getting kind of tired of French classes, so it'll be nice to mix it up a bit.

Thanksgiving plans

Being in a completely different culture kind of makes you cling to things that are American and familiar, so we're going all out for the very American holiday of Thanksgiving. The PC office has kindly gifted us Butterball turkeys, I believe imported from the US, and we'll all be cooking traditional-ish food. We kind of have to make do with the ingredients we can find here, so some things might not be exactly authentic. For instance, I'm in the mashed potatoes group, and we recently found out that the market has run out of potatoes. Horrible timing. So, we'll be making our dish with patates, which is kind of between a potato and a yam. Looks like a potato, but is slightly sweet. And hopefully it'll taste good mashed and covered with gravy. Next week, or sometime post-Thanksgiving, I'll let you know how the dish turned out. And that blog post will most likely be accompanied by lots of Thanksgiving festivity photos!

Oh, and also, if you have any questions or want me to write about anything, feel free to leave a message in the comments! I might not respond but I'll definitely read them!