(Mis)communicating

My attempts at communication these days reminds me of one of my favorite jokes:

Long, long ago, in a valley far, far away, there lived a group of Catholics and a group of Mennonites. They had coexisted since time immemorial and were happy to be neighbors, but eventually it became clear that with generation after generation of large families, they were outgrowing the valley. So they decided that one group would stay and the other would leave, as determined by a public debate between their leaders, the pope and Menno Simons. The one constraint: no words would be spoken during this debate. 

The morning of the debate, the crowd gathered around the pair. After thinking for a minute, the pope started it off by holding up three fingers. In response, Menno Simons held up one. Then the pope waved one finger around his head. Menno Simons pointed to the ground where he sat. The pope took out a chalice of wine and a communion wafer. Menno Simons pulled out an apple. And with that, the pope stood up and declared that Menno Simons had won and that the Catholics would find another place to live. 

As they were packing up, the Catholics asked the pope what had been said in the debate. 

"Well, I held up three fingers to represent the holy trinity, but he held up one finger to remind me that God is still one. Then I gestured around me to indicate that God is all around us, but he pointed to the ground to say that God is also here. Finally I brought out the bread and cup to show that God absolves us of our sins, but he pulled out the apple to remind me of original sin. He had me beat."

As the Mennonites celebrated their good fortune across the valley, one asked Menno Simons to explain the debate.

"So, first he held up three fingers to say that we have three days to leave, and I held up one finger to say that not one of us is going. He gestured around himself to suggest that there is plenty of other good land elsewhere, but I pointed to the ground to say that we're staying right here!"

"And then what?" someone asked.

"Who knows. He pulled out his lunch, so I pulled out mine."

Oh, miscommunication. The other cooks and I do pretty well when we're communicating about the foods and tasks in front of us. But saying anything with more nuance than “cut the potatoes this way,” or “eat another piece of cake,” takes at least some serious planning if not an actual translator. A few weeks ago two of the cooks and one of the sisters who frequently stops by were talking, first about me, then to me. That much was clear. I picked out a word here and there but nothing cohesive, and as they realized that their question wasn't getting through they stopped, thought for a moment, shook their heads, and moved on to a different topic. Several days later a coworker who's fluent in English translated for the cooks—the sister had been asking if there are many nuns where I come from. Yeah, I wasn't going to guess that from the bits I had caught.

Some of the misunderstandings are cultural. The other cooks arrive at the kitchen relatively early, between 6:30 and 7, and stop to eat some bread and jam around 9, probably their first food of the day. (Coffee and cigarettes don't count.) At that point, I'm still full from the granola and yogurt I ate at home, but if I don't eat at least a kifla, a crescent-shaped yeast roll, they invariably comment on how little I eat. (A note: I eat well here, especially at the kitchen, and I'm an average size for a Bosnian woman. I'm not wasting away!)

I'm quite sure that I've spoken the right words in the right order to communicate that I ate muesli and yogurt at home, so this is not about translation. The explanation for this one falls somewhere around culture, hospitality, and motherliness. In my understanding, the word for breakfast, doručak, actually refers to any food you eat before you eat lunch, ručak, which could be as late as 5 pm, and according to another English-speaking co-worker, muesli is to be eaten while watching TV, not for doručak and not with yogurt. Thus a little granola at home is no excuse for not eating a kifla for doručak at work, and since I am still treated as a guest in the kitchen in some ways, they would probably be remiss if they did not try to persuade me to eat something.

But my favorite miscommunication so far was when my attempt at a comment in Bosnian on how it looked like it would rain all day was interpreted—I think—as a question of how many staff had eaten lunch. At least we know how to laugh together.