Cultural brokers

I recently visited a friend of mine who has spent a considerable amount of time in the Middle East, but now lives in the Philippines. When we were gassing up our scooters one morning, I heard her speak to the attendants in Visayan, the local dialect, and was so proud of her for making the effort to integrate into the community. In my view, learning the language of a community in which you plan to live or work is one of the most respectful things you can do. It shows that you value your relationship with that community enough to not demand that they conform to your language and cultural practices, but that you are willing to at least try to meet them on their own ground.

For this reason, I have sought a Tagalog learning resource since before I got to the Philippines. I googled it, I looked for books, I checked Duolingo, browsed Triplingo, and managed to cobble together a few phrases - especially "Hindi ako nakakaintindi ng Tagalog", I don't understand Tagalog. I managed to communicate with my patients on the ward with our Taglish (Tagalog + English), hand gestures, and frequent help from the nursing staff. Ang pangalan ako ay Jenna. Nars ako. My name is Jenna, I'm a nurse. May masakit? Do you have pain? May plema? Is there phlegm? Meron gamot? Do you have your medication? And so on. Oh, it would be so much easier if I could just speak Tagalog and break down this barrier between us!

When I talked to my friend who had managed to learn some Visayan about how she learned, she said she had paid a local tutor. Genius! And that she had a tutor in Manila who taught her some Tagalog Brilliant! Maybe she can connect me? When she asked me why I wanted to learn Tagalog, I told her that I would like to possibly come back in the future to do more work here and think that speaking the local language would be very helpful should that be my my path. Our conversation screeched to a halt. She shared that she has hardly used any Tagalog since she arrived in her new community, and that if she were to move to another island, she would have to again learn a new language. It makes more sense to just have an interpreter, especially if I am not going to be working in one location alone. Ugh. Betrayal. What a cop-out. Or is it?

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that - wherever I have traveled - language has only been one of many barriers to communication and effective work. What are the norms? What gift should I bring? How should I contact this person? How does public transportation work? Even if I understand what he is saying, what does he mean? That weekend, I just so happened to read in "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down" (by Anne Fadiman) a passage that very eloquently stated what I was starting to catch onto. It comes from pages 94 and 95, when Fadiman is talking about Sukey Waller, the psychologist at Merced Community Outreach Services who was one of the most respected Americans among the Hmong community in Merced, and the advice Sukey gave her about working with the Hmong:

In her opinion, someone who merely converted Hmong words into English, however accurately, would be of no help to me whatsoever. "I don't call my staff interpreters," she told me. "I call them cultural brokers. They teach me. When I don't know what to do, I ask them. You should go find yourself a cultural broker."

Amazing. Right on time.

What I had before seen as a lazy way to approach cross-cultural work and relationship-building may actually be more efficient than doing it myself in many cases. (After all, I can't learn every language in the world, now can I? Oh, the arrogance of youth.) Beyond that, it is an opportunity to create a job for a community member. Just hope for a cultural broker better than the ones Fadiman picked at first:

Carefully following my advisers' instructions, I asked two middle-aged men in turn, each an important figure in his clan, to translate for me. My experiences with them were identical. I would ask a question. The interpreter would translate. The Hmong I was questioning would talk animatedly to the interpreter for four or five minutes. Then the interpreter would turn to me and say, "He says no."