A letter to Brian

Rachel told me her brother Brian was a little discouraged in Brazil.  This is what I wrote him.
I remember being dropped into the deep end of the foreign language pool. Actually, it wasn't a pool; you can easily get to the edge of a pool to take a break. It was a lake. Sink or swim. My trainer was Filipino and we were the only companionship in our apartment. I was the only native English speaker for miles. A lot of members spoke some English but it was easier to just talk to Elder Gamboa. I had no idea what anyone was saying; all the words ran together.

I looked forward to our weekly service projects since that (and district meeting) was the only time I got to speak to someone I understood -- there was another American in the next area over and we usually did our service projects together.

It was particularly frustrating because Elder Gamboa had been in the branch for close to forever. He was a friendly man and everyone liked him. For large parts of the day we'd have district missionaries with us, so everyone was chattering away with Elder Gamboa and each other and I had no idea what was going on.

Elder Gamboa didn't understand what the big deal was. "You speak Tagalog fine. Better than Elder MyFirstGreenie." I don't think he understood the vast difference between speaking a few words and being able to understand actual conversations, or if he had once, he had forgotten it. I coped by memorizing the first two discussions in Tagalog. At least that way I didn't have to read my discussion pamphlet, which was just adding insult to injury.

One night a couple weeks in, everyone was talking away as we walked towards a jeepney stop. I was frustrated enough that it showed in my body language and one of the district missionaries, a nice older woman (it's all relative -- I think she was 24, but I was 19) named Rose asked, "What's wrong, Elder Ellis?" I replied, in French, "j'ne comprends rien du tout et ca m'enerve!" "I don't understand," she said, puzzled. "Exactly," I said bitterly.

So I had a lot of time to go over the entries in my Tagalog notebook. Whenever I heard a word or phrase that I didn't understand I wrote it down, and when I had time I would ask Elder Gamboa what they were. Sometimes I got the word separations so wrong that we couldn't figure out what I had heard. And I got used to speaking like a two year old -- a slightly retarded two year old, at that. But whenever I had a chance to participate, I took it. If you're reluctant to look like a fool, you'll never learn a new language. Kids don't care; that's one reason they learn so quickly. And I tried to read; the Book of Mormon translation we had at the time was rendered into very archaic Tagalog, so that wasn't as much help as it might have been. But the Liahona was great.

You're right that sometimes ignorance _is_ bliss. I remember one time a tricycle driver tried to overcharge us. Mostly missionaries were immune to "the white tax," but occasionally someone would try to get a little extra out of us. Or maybe we were inadvertently stiffing him -- I don't know, but Elder Gamboa was certain that we were in the right and he was damned if he was going to pay an extra centavo. After arguing for a while the driver finally spat out something I didn't catch, wheeled around, and left. I asked Elder Gamboa what he had said, but Elder Gamboa only told me, "he was angry." You don't say.

Much later I found out that "puta ang ina mo" literally means "your mother's a whore" and is basically the idiomatic equivalent of "f*** you," and I realized, hey, that's what that driver told us!

Another one. About a year into my mission, when I spoke Tagalog better, I met a Filipino elder in my district who took a sly delight in teaching me a little about Tagalog double entendres. There was a popular song at the time titled Kama Supra (super bed), whose refrain went, "hihiga tayo at kakan...ta" -- "we'll lie down and sing." It turns out that by pausing in the middle of kakanta, they were implying that they were going to say kakantotan instead: "we'll lie down and have sex." That was an enlightening moment. I missed that guy when he was transferred.