Laafie

When I first arrived in Togo, I was given the task of learning French. Then two months later I was sent to my permanent site and advised to start learning the local language, Moba. I will be working with numerous women’s groups in the Tandjouaré prefecture and, on average, maybe only 2-3 speak enough French to be comfortable conversing with me. Either way though, I need to have somebody with me in order to translate.  Speaking the local language is a great way to integrate in the community. Passing someone on one of the numerous paths usually involves an inquisitive stare, but then I say duan guam (dwan gwaum) and their face breaks into a smile as they respond with the standard laafie (lah-fee-eh).

At the beginning of September, I started Moba tutoring with a guy who teaches English at the elementary school in the next town over. He reads Moba, which is not very common, as Moba is historically a spoken language and the spelling of most words is debatable. Although his English is very good, he teaches me in French. Yes, I’m learning an indigenous language through a language that I started learning in June.

When I was 10, I remember inventing a language with a friend of mine. We spent hours creating vocabulary lists and testing each other. The words were simple, one or two syllables, and had no connection to the English language. Learning Moba reminded me of this because of how foreign both languages seemed. (We lost interest in creating our own language after a few days.) Even the quarter of Russian that I took in college seemed less foreign, and that included learning the Cyrillic alphabet.

One of my teachers in training told the Savannes group, “Don’t worry. Moba is the easiest of the Togolese languages to learn.” I don’t know what he based that statement on, but I wonder about its validity. Essentially though, Moba is a basic language. Verbs have no conjugations. Bé means `to be’ and the conjugations `I am’, `you are’, `he is’ need only a pronoun added before the verb–n bé, a bé, b bé. But that’s where the simplicity ends (in my opinion).

Moba is a language, as are most West African local language, in which intonation denotes a word’s meaning. A word can have one spelling with multiple definitions depending on the inflection of your voice. I have chosen to ignore this tiny detail, focusing on pure memorization of the words for the time being and hoping that I don’t say a bad word while trying to buy onions at the marché. I won’t even get into pluralization. It’s a concept with no systematic order than I have also chosen to ignore for the time being.

For those of you unfamiliar with the French language, they have adopted a unique style of counting. Up through sixty-nine, there exists a logical, continual progression of numbers. Seventy, however, can be literally translated as `sixty-ten’ and continues with `sixty-eleven’ up to `sixty-nineteen’. Then, at eighty, you switch and say `four twenties’ and ninety becomes `four twenties ten’ so by ninety-nine it’s ‘four twenties nineteen’ or quatre-vingts dix-neuf. I thought that was confusing; then I learned Moba. First of all, there exists two separate sets of numbers, depending on what you’re counting–individual items or money. I learned basic counting first. Yent, bãnle, bãnta, bãnna, bãnmu, bãnluob, bãnlele, bãnnii, bãnyie, piig. “Okay,” I though, “I can do this.” From there, the numerical progression made sense. Twenty took the first part of ten and combined it with the last part of two, piinle. Same for three, piinta, and so on. The West African Franc currency, however, is based on a system of five. Thus, 20 beans (piinle tua) can cost 100 francs (piinle), with the idea being 5x20=100. I won’t go into it any more than that, but let’s just say that saying 715 francs in Moba takes quite a bit of brainpower (multiplication, addition and knowledge of an indigenous language), and that’s coming from someone who likes math.

So just when I get comfortable saying something, I can go down the road 20 minutes and learn another way to say the same thing. It could be something subtle, like laafie changes to laafia, or something a bit more drastic. This originates from the time when traveling was limited to within walking distance, although, for many Togolese, this remains their main mode of transportation. One Moba can identify the village another Moba comes from based on the dialect he speaks. In the northern Savannes region, there are two main local languages–Moba and Gourma. I’ve been told that Gourma can understand Moba but Moba can’t understand Gourma, but who knows how true that is.

Greetings are the most important part of learning local language. It’s the best way to assimilate into the community and can help you to quickly make friends with anyone. Most foreigners are just passing through and don’t bother to learn any local phrases and they usually appreciate the attempt by a yovo. The basic good morning, good afternoon, good evening and good night are duan guam, tun-po (toon-poh), juog-po (johg-poh) and yë nyiog (yehn nee-yohg)–because I know you all were wondering. This is a typical Moba greeting for me that I have maybe 5-10 times a day:

Togolese: Ye soml!

Me: Nfa, tun-po.

Togolese: L man-i?

Me: Laafie.

Togolese: A tuon po-i?

Me: Laafie.

Togolese: A naag-i?

Me: Laafie.

Togolese: Sie-yog nnya.

Me: Nfa.

Which roughly translates to:

Welcome! / Thanks. Good afternoon. / How are you? / Fine. / How’s the work? / Fine. / How’s the house (including all people and animals, it’s different if you’re only asking about the people)? / Fine. / See you later. / Thanks.

Yeah, I try to be on the receiving side of the conversation. It’s a lot easier. The funny part is that once you engage in this greeting, they assume that you’re fluent and start babbling on in Moba with the assumption that you can understand everything that they’re saying. I usually just smile, nod and say laafie.

BTW: The picture of the women bending over and pounding the ground is the traditional Moba way that they make cement floors. Only the women are allowed to partake in this activity (while the men sit lazily and watch). They combine cement, water and sand, pour it on the ground and repetitively pound it with a wooden implement. A space of 20ftx30ft took 20+ women about 6 hours to complete. With the sun shining on their backs, they broke only to throw on more water or to take a shot of palm wine.