Breaking Down Language Barriers with Laughter

By Angela Renne.

I grew up on a cornfield.

When I was four or five years old, I lived in Iowa where corn reigned as king. Now although corn is a staple of Farendè, Togo, and you will witness corn grow to more than 6 feet tall, corn is far from the topic of this article.

Anyways, I grew up on a cornfield although my parents weren’t farmers in the slightest. They were professors but fell in love with a quaint little house out on the prairie. We had a small garden out back and a chicken coop, home to six chickens. Aside from the small plot of garden, the rest of our backyard was corn. The corn belonged to a Mexican farmer who had immigrated to America in search of a living. However, the most important thing to me at the time was that he had a daughter that was my age. We became fast friends even though oftentimes we weren’t able to communicate vocally with each other. She had grown up conversing solely in Spanish, while I spoke English and splatterings of Chinese here and there.

But this didn’t matter. For us, verbal communication was not necessary. We bonded over our love for dressing up and pretending to be Disney princesses, making mud pies, singing off-key, and playing hide and go seek amidst the corn. We were never really affected by our language barrier.

Since arriving in Farendè and Koukoude, it has become apparent that although many of the residents speak French, there are still quite a few who do not and speak only Kabiye. These are generally the older men and women or children whose parents cannot afford to send them to school. Although during my time here I have learned certain words in Kabiye such as hello, goodbye, thank you, and the word for beer, I am far from being able to understand the language. But like in the case of my childhood friend, conversation and lingual communication is often not necessary.

Across cultures, the general understanding of smiles, laughter, and friendly tones are very similar. A smile can oftentimes communicate more than words. Not only can we pick up on basic facial expressions despite of language, but we also all share a common passion for singing, dancing, and music, all of which do not require language.

The first Sunday spent in Farendè began with a trip to church. I had thought that the proceedings would be conducted in French; however, they were in Kabiye instead. Despite not being able to understand the words of the sermon, once drums began to play and the choir and the entire church congregation began to sing, needing to understand the words didn’t matter. Some of the songs were in French while others were in Kabiye, but all of them were beautiful, uplifting, and brought on emotions without the need for complete comprehension of the words. Two weeks later on a Friday night, we had our first sleepover in Koukoude. The night began with a game of cards with all of the students on the trip this year as well as Trudy’s host brother and Preethi’s host sister. It was lively and a lot of fun, although I noticed that the young children who were clustered around only looked on curiously, unable to join in because they could not understand the instructions to play. However, once the card game was over and we began having a dance party, all of the young kids became much more animated. They clearly loved dancing, and some came up with dance moves of their own. Many of them knew little to no French but that didn’t matter. We stayed up until midnight, way past their regular bedtimes of 21:00, dancing the night away.

Dancing and singing and forms of communication that do not require verbal understanding such as tickling, holding hands, or hugs, are enough to form strong bonds of friendship. I never completely understood my childhood friend from Iowa, and I moved away before we could learn each other’s language, but she was one of my best friends and made a great impact on my life. The same goes for the people of Farendè and Koukoude. During my time here, I have formed bonds with children on the mountain, solely through nonverbal communication. The joy that can be found connecting with people from different cultures through dance and songs needs no lingual connection, only an appreciation of each other.