John Ngugi Wa Thiongho (Kenya)
-The River Between
Kenjo Njumban (Cameroon, NW)
-The White Man of God
Wole Soyinka (Nigeria)
-The Interpreters
...a list of African authors/book titles from Andre.
8/14/2001:
it’s early in the morning on Tuesday. my brain was so language fried yesterday afternoon. i sat down to translate some of my presentation with Francois. it was interesting. French is actually starting to make sense... now that we’re leaving, of course.
the presentation will, i believe, turn out to be a good exercise in French... not to mention patience and quick thinking. not sure how much more i’ll translate. i got home and did laundry yesterday well after sunset. then ironed my clothes and slept.
after sitting down with Francois for a little i went to Pidgin class (more on Cameroonian Pidgin). too much language for one day! it’s always so funny how much French we end up using in Pidgin class. in responses. in translation. and even to comprehend. most of them just by habituation. that’s what comes out now.
it occurred to me that i don’t really ever (that may be too strong a word) want to learn a language as i did French and now Pidgin. just too intense. not really at my pace. still, i am looking forward to “picking-up” a few more languages.
IMAGE: some of our language trainers lounging while on break during summer school in Santa. the school was the venue both for the training we received and the teaching we did (though that was also technically for our training).
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