TONGUE TIED

Imagine this.

You have recently arrived in a land far from home, where the values, beliefs, practices, and way-of-life are a bit different than you are accustomed to, but where the people, thankfully, radiate with a sense of kindness and generosity that you are familiar with, and which makes you feel more at home. As you settle into your new life and adjust to the culture and climate that envelop you, it becomes clear that the largest challenge you face—one that you must overcome in order to be successful and retain a sense of connectedness with those around you—is communication.

A simple exchange of dialogue, which used to be effortless, frequent, and enjoyable, is now difficult, uncommon, and often marred by misunderstanding. Intellectual conversation, which was once a great source of satisfaction and connection, now ceases to exist. You may think of yourself as decently intelligent and capable of offering words and ideas that provoke thought and encourage discussion, but the broken, child-like sentences that now characterize your everyday speech show no indication of such intellect. In fact, they may suggest something of the opposite: a simple person with little to offer—not the way you see yourself at all.

But despite the general silence that seems to accompany you most places you go, the kindness and generosity from those that surround you remains ever-present—a fact that you are very much thankful for but which you begin to feel unworthy of. You haven’t done anything, and beyond the abundance of friendly greetings that you offer to (quite literally) everyone you see each day, you speak very little to very few people—held back by the vast amount of local language that you don’t know and surviving with only the small bit that you do.

The days, weeks, and months pass, you continue relying on the relatively small set of vocabulary that (by now) you know well, and the people around you continue to treat you as one of their own—with respect and generosity—for seemingly no other reason than that you are here with them, now, sharing space and time. But amidst the feelings of connectedness and belonging that naturally result from the actions of such kind individuals lingers a slight but definite sense of isolation. Because you have thoughts, beliefs, values, dreams, history, stories, knowledge, and advice that you desperately want to share and exchange—you believe they do as well—but a barrier of misunderstanding blocks the way, with only the occasional complete idea or sentence breaking through. With the many thoughts and curiosities that crowd your mind each day comes a feeling of frustration in knowing that you cannot vocalize them—at least not completely, correctly, or well enough to be fully understood.

Welcome to Mali.