TOSTAN!

Sometimes I attend the TOSTAN (Google will tell you more about the organization than I could, but one of its goals is to teach people how to read in the local language) meetings in my village so I can learn to say words like "knowledge" and "human rights" in Pulaar. The first few times I went, I did not know that the teacher spoke any English (he hides this fact very well) and Julia, my sitemate, was not around so he could not translate the Pulaar into French for her, which she could then translate into English for me. But one day a student came by for mathematics help, and I convinced him to translate the TOSTAN words for me. Some of the translations were straightforward, but most were amusingly complicated:


darnde: if you stand up it's where you are

ndaranaade: it does not look it

goongiyankeejo: gather and come for meeting

Renndinoowa: the one calling people to gather them

pellital: you agree you want to go someplace and you don't go back

nippude boneeji: removing bad things with people

ndol nddaaju: when you come and force someone to do something they don't like

muuseeki: when you do something and it is affecting someone else

munyal: when someone does something to you, you keep quiet, you don't fight back

nyiiba: when someone does something to you, you keep it inside your heart

bural: you have something someone else doesn't have

lewlewendu: the light coming from a candle (I asked, "only the light from a candle? what about a lightbulb?" and the reply was, "from anything, even the moon!" Then he drew a picture of a circle with lines coming from it)

diisnondiral: the person you go to explain your problem

*I later learned "pellital" means "decision" and "munyal" means "patience."

Julia has since returned, so the translations have gotten less long-winded, for the most part.