D'accord

My first week at Microfund Togo, the local microfinance institute I'm placed with for Kiva, was filled with many adventures: technical difficulties (no internet access at the office), packed taxi rides to the Cyber Cafe to do any work, and many lost in translation moments between people attempting to communicate in their 2nd (or 3rd, or 4th) tongues.

The latter entails an embarrassing story.

The Togolese in the south speak a local dialect called Ewe (pronounced Eh-vay). French is not their maternal language, so they speak Ewe amongst each other. Thus, while I'm at the office, the people at Microfund speak French to me, but the other 99% of the time I have absolutely no idea what's going on.

One afternoon last week, a group of people came into the small office wearing traditional attire. Everyone stood up. Hands were shaken. A meeting commenced. In Ewe, of course.

I spent the next 30 minutes trying to figure out what the deal was: "Why is that Dude smiling but that woman over there keeps shaking her head and tisking?" "They all seem a little subdued to be selling a group loan idea..." "Ooo! I heard 'BEBE' twice when that woman gestured towards herself - maybe she's talking about her child?" "This is torture - I don't get it."

Everyone eventually stood up and made the rounds to say goodbye. After they left, someone was kind enough to clue me in on what just happened. In French. But here's the catch: my French isn't THAT amazing. I sometimes don't catch every part of a conversation or explanation. And sometimes, what I miss is key.

Octave told me that the people were a coworker's family. The older woman was his mother (yesss...I got something right). His brother, uncle, sister and aunt were there as well. And they came by the office to say Thank You.

What came next is the part I didn't understand. "Notre collegue (our coworker) a decidé."

I knew this was the key part by the way he looked at me. I gave him a puzzled look in response and asked, "pardon?" (i.e. HUH?). He just kept repeating himself and emphasizing the "a decidé" part. I eventually felt too stupid to ask him to please explain the verb he clearly expected me to know. I guessed that perhaps "a decidé" meant "to decide, or accept" something. Okay, so some guy decided to accept a job and his family came by to say Thanks?

I smiled and said the "oh, okay" phrase in French that I repeat falsely 1000 times a day:

"Ah... D'accord..."

Octave gave me a weird look and went back to his computer.

Okay, maybe the coworker didn't decide?

I asked the driver who picked me up from the embassy what "a decidé" means, and explained the situation. He told me that "a decidé" means to die. Wait, I said, I thought "est mort" means to die? Yes, he said, that's a synonym.

Crap.

Apparently, when a coworker dies, it's tradition for a Togolese company to visit the family's home and give money to help pay for the funeral, etc. There's really no such thing as life insurance here, so this is how a family can survive financially for a short period of time. Tradition then insists that the family come back tot he company to express their gratitude.

I thought back to my dumb, smiling, "oh, okay!" response and cringed.

Must work on French immediately.

Then sign up for Ewe lessons.