The sun was hot and the only sounds were an occasional chicken pecking around in the dirt or a bird chirping in the air. My friend Sabine and I sought shade under the straw overhang of one of the mud huts which was open for us to relax in and around. We took refuge from the heat of the day and sat looking at the beauty of the land. After a few minutes, a couple of young boys came by. They made their way over to see if there was anything interesting to occupy their time. I was afraid we were going to disappoint them terribly, but I was wrong. We began speaking to them with the very few words we knew in Macua. We ran out of words very quickly.
Pretty soon, we were completely surrounded by nearly all the boys in the village. Some of the braver boys spoke to us, but we did not understand what they were trying to tell us. Sabine and I looked at each other with delight and desperation. We wanted to engage with the boys but it was challenging without the vocabulary. Sabine began to sing a song. She and I sang in English and the faces of those little ones just hung on every syllable. They were mesmerized. We tried to get them to sing a song in their language, but our gestures must not have been clear enough. Some did, however, sing along with us as they quickly tuned in to the phrases we sang over and over. Every now and then, one of them would reach out their little hand to gently touch our arm or hair as their curiosity got the best of them. Our white skin and blonde hair was foreign to them. "Are they real? What do they feel like?" I can only imagine what was going through their minds.
The boys tried to speak Macua to us and when we didn't understand, they would say the same phrase louder and louder, emphasizing the exact same words but with greater volume. They persevered as if, eventually, we would come to understand their language as their volume increased. We just laughed and kept saying the only words we knew in Macua.
Finally, one of the boys broke through the crowd and presented a deck of cards to us. We played card games and they would all laugh and yell out when someone uncovered a match. I am still not sure what we were playing.
After a very long time of playing, singing, sitting, staring and being with these little ones, the crowd began to disperse. They all moved away from the circle they had formed around us and I could see it was actually still daylight. Those little guys were packed in so close to us that it had become dark in our little huddle.
Then Thomas, another visitor from the States began engaging the kids and encouraging them to sit on the ground in a big circle. In no time, he taught them how to play Duck Duck Goose. They would each take a turn to get up, slowly pat each kid on the head with a hand and a verbal "duck", choose their victim, and smack the victim's head saying "GOOOOOSE!" (or some form of these English words) and then squeal as they ran for safety. It was so much fun to watch and the kids roared with laughter as they chased each other around the circle.
There were so many moments like this where I learned how easy it is to engage with people beyond verbal language. Before going on this trip, I felt limited in how I could interact with people who didn't speak the same language as me. Now I realize it takes very little to welcome people into your world. Whether you end up singing, dancing, playing cards, giving a hug or sitting quietly together under an overhang to hide from the scorching sun, almost every interpersonal engagement starts with one very simple thing- a smile.
Smiling. It is so powerful. I encourage you to smile at strangers you encounter as you move through the day. See what happens, what kind of reactions you get and how you feel. A smile is the same in every language.
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