All Mixed Up

It is incredibly unfair for you to impose yourselves on a village where you are so linguistically deaf and dumb that you don't even understand what you are doing, or what people think of you.

Ivan Illich,
"To Hell With Good Intentions" Speech, 1968

When we first arrived in Mozambique, we sat at a restaurant and did our best pointing job to order a great meal. When it came time for dessert, Laura asked the waiter to describe the ice cream dish (a bold move, given the few words of Portuguese we could understand at the time). He said that it contained maça. Apple. Sounds good, Laura thought, and ordered it.

Except that he didn't say maça. He said massa. Spaghetti.

Strange. Even stranger that it's on the menu at all. We've seen it at several restaurants since, though we haven't been able to find a single Mozambican who confesses to eating the stuff.

Not long after Laura's spaghetti incident, I was helping out at the seminary construction project. Geraldo asked me for some massa. This time, I was on the ball. I knew he didn't want an apple. But did he want me to buy him a plate of spaghetti?

Turns out that massa -- which literally means 'mixture' -- is also mortar for bricks.

For better or for worse, I'll never know all the mistakes that I've made trying to speak Portuguese. Once in a while the confusion is unearthed and corrected. One of the most memorable occasions happened while having a conversation with Jeronimo, a non-Christian. Wanting to learn more about me, he asked a simple question: "Why is it that you are a missionary, but don't attend church?"

"I don't attend church?" I asked, confused. How would he have that impression?

"You told me a couple of weeks ago that you don't attend church."

Why would I tell him that? Surely I didn't. Or maybe I had meant to tell him that I didn't attend church that particular Sunday.

And as simple as that, an innocuous (though significant) misunderstanding takes root, merely because I apparently used the wrong verb tense in a long-forgotten conversation.

Ivan Illich was a combative social thinker who was infamous for his biting critiques of missionaries and other "dogooders ... pretentiously imposing" ourselves on foreign cultures. His critiques are most painful when he succeeds at digging his teeth a little too close to the truth. The truth is, we have often felt linguistically deaf and dumb this year. The truth is, our lack of fluency has stunted the growth of our relationships both in depth and breadth.

Language is a barrier that has prevented us from getting to know more than a handful of Mozambicans really well.

Unlike Mr Illich, I don't think that linguistic and cultural barriers are insurmountable. I don't think that missionaries are necessarily living in their adopted countries as invasive salesmen and unwelcome propagators of Western culture.

Some are, sure. But not all. I've witnessed some good examples of "my-way-or-the-highway" theology, but I've also witnessed some better examples of people who love the sick, who love the forgotten, who love the poor. People who spend their time learning about their Mozambican neighbours, sharing meals with them and tears with them, learning from them and only when necessary teaching them. Like a friend, a nurse, who helped a mother through toxemia and taught her to feed her pre-mature child when the hospital couldn't provide adequate care.

We can't love our neighbours without knowing our neighbours, and we can't know our neighbours without learning to talk to them. But the very act of learning their language builds bonds of trust.

Yes, it's difficult. Yes, it takes time. Yes, we'll look foolish at times. We might even bring construction workers a surprise (but welcomed) plate of spaghetti once or twice. If that's the price of friendship, let me look foolish.