I am in my sixth week here in Brazil and I must say that I still find it quite strange to be in a place where usually I do not know what is going on because I don’t understand the language. In preparation for my field education, I studied Portuguese at both Duke Univerisity and Durham Tech, which I am grateful for because I know how to conjugate a verb, but hearing a language as it is commonly spoken means something different from learning in the classroom when the teacher intentionally speaks slower so her students can understand. Usually I am in the room and people are speaking rapidly and my eyes wander from mouth to mouth in a desparate attempt to understand what they are saying. I can pick up every other word, but when they ask me a question, I usually answer wrong because I didn´t understand what exactly they are saying. Yesterday after morning worship I attended the teenagers Bible School. Upon entering the class, the leader asked the students did they have “vaidade”. I did not know that word, so I asked the girl next to me to describe it for me. She said “vaidade” and started making movements that made the word sound like “beauty”. So the leader asked me, did I have a lot of “vaidade”? I´m thinking the word means beauty, so I say yes, I have a lot. Then I look up the word in my dictionary, and it means vanity. Granted, my response tells me that I do have a lot of vanity, but nonetheless, I should have looked the word up before I responded.
This is usually how my days go, picking bits and pieces of conversation, answering incorrectly, giving blank stares, or, more often than not, pretending like I understand so we can move on to the next subject. Since my colleagues did not join me in youth Bible study, I was the only non-Portuguese speaking person in the room. Now, over the course of the past six weeks I have sat in several rooms where everyone was speaking rapidly, but usually Tiffany or Kyndra was nearby and I could chat with them a little. But in this class, I felt like a complete outsider. Although my comprehension has improved since arriving in Brazil, I had to ask people to repeat what they had just said more slowly and I felt like I was stunting their conversation with the rest of the class. I did not know how much I leaned on my colleagues for relational support until sitting in the class alone. When I didn’t understand something, they usually would laugh with me as I fumbled through the Portuguese. Or, to rebel against the inability to join into conversation, we would have a personal conversation with the satisfaction that no one knows what we are saying. With my colleagues, I was at least a part some shared culture and language, but in this classroom, I was completely al0ne.
The experience was not all uncomfortable of course, and I walked out with new vocabulary and I connected with a few youth at the church. However, in the U.S. I never appreciated the power of language. Whereas I am usually able to articulate myself, in the class I felt younger than everyone else in the room when I was actually the oldest person in there with the exception of the teacher. I was not able to add my own insights on the subject of vanity because I simply did not have the vocabulary. I could only sit back and listen. I did not agree with what some people were saying, and I really wanted to push my group to think further about vanity, but once again, limited vocabulary. It was humbling for someone who spends most of her time articulating theological ideas for the purpose of pedagogy in for example a youth Bible study because I wanted to talk. I wanted to contribute. Since I could not speak, I could not impose my ideas on anyone, giving me the chance to just simply listen.
