By: Lael Crabtree
Imagine walking into class, but instead of the usual podium and white board, the room is dotted with thatch huts, cooking fires, and an old tribal man carving some sort of wooden object. A radio somewhere is blaring island music and the smell of cigarette smoke is in the air.
We have entered a tribal village, in the islands region of Papua New Guinea and are here to apply all the knowledge we’ve gained in our training thus far. What an experience!
Our class has been broken down into teams of about 5 people each. Our goal is to spend time in the village, getting to know the Dobu culture and spend time learning the language.
The Dobu culture is like one big puzzle we are trying to piece together as we get to know the people. We are learning how easy it is to make mistakes and how some things we take for granted as Americans are completely inappropriate with the Dobu people. As our teacher put it, “We want you to learn how to make mistakes here, so you’ll be better prepared for the field.” It’s amazing how something so simple as how you phrase a question or refer to a person or perform a greeting is completely significant and can possibly cause incredible offense.
Kinosi has been designated as our “language helper” so we’ve spent most of our time in the village with him. We had our first language learning session with him last week, and it was the perfect way to apply all of the language learning principles we’ve been studying. It was incredible! By the end of 20 minutes, I had confidently learned 10 new vocabulary words and still remember them now, several days later. We were able to record Kinosi saying the words and take a picture of all the objects. Then we entered the audio and photo into our computer program, and now we can review what we learned! Kinosi’s voice plays, we click the object, and the computer tells us if we’re right or not! Tomorrow we are returning to the village to visit with some of the other villagers and have another language session with Kinosi.
This is such a practical time! While it is only a simulation, it is about as close as it gets to practice for the real thing. It’s also a very humbling time, as we are learning to enter each scenario as total learners. Understanding the tribal culture is so pivotal to building relationships. It’s exciting to see things unfold as we begin to understand the Dobu culture more and more! Just a taste of what it will feel like as we begin to break down similar barriers of understanding in our future tribal home!
Leave a Reply