Peace Corps Language Training

Language assignment is one of the most exciting parts of Peace Corps. Sometimes, the language you're assigned to gives you a hint about where you might go, and where you go isn't revealed until the very end of PST. To make things fun, each volunteer received a card with an image on it - people got lions, monkeys, snakes, elephants, etc. My card had a snake.

To find out what our language was, we had to make the sound of the animal on our card to find our group and our language trainer. I started hissing and walking, and it wasn't long before I found out that Mama Rosa would be my language trainer and I would be learning Silozi. 

Mama Rosa starts from scratch, teaching the Silozi diphthongs. 

Silozi is a language spoken by a relatively small minority in Namibia and is neither as recognizable to the outside world as the Khoisan (or "click") languages nor as widely spoken as, say, Afrikaans. 

You find Silozi speakers in the most remote area of Namibia - the Zambezi Region (formerly known as the Caprivi Region/Caprivi Strip). It is spoken as a lingua franca there with local tribal languages including Fwe, Kuhane, Mbukushu, Totela, and Yeyi, among others. Silozi came to Namibia through the conquest of the area in the past by Lozi kings who came from western Zambia via modern-day Lesotho and nearby areas in Southern Africa. Zambezi is a small extension of Namibia that extends between the borders of Zambia and Botswana, and coming within hundreds of meters of, but not quite reaching the Zimbabwean border. Namibia is the 34th largest country in the world, yet only 2% of the land is arable, and almost all of it is in Zambezi Region. It is one of the last regions to develop in Namibia, partially because of a conflict that affected the area between 1994 and 1999. Unfortunately, the region also suffers from a high rate of HIV infection (37.7%). It has cultural traditions unlike any other part of Namibia, such as bowing and clapping, or kissing the other's palm while greeting. It is also the last region of Namibia in which the tribal kings/chiefs still hold an important influence over the day-to-day lives of the people who live there. It is one of the most beautiful regions of Namibia, with seasonal floods causing the floodplain areas to turn into a series of oxbow lakes and islands. It is also home to the largest number of birds of any region in Namibia. 

Mama Rosa is one of the best, if not the best, language trainers I have ever had. Her technique is to speak as little English as possible, using body language to get her point across. She has 40+ years of experience as a teacher and school principal. When she retired, she became part of a panel of a Silozi radio show, and a Peace Corps language trainer. She is enthusiastic and has a captivating personality, laughing and cutting up while explaining difficult ideas with the ease of a professional carrying years of experience.