Let’s Talk Emberá

A long time ago I told myself I was going to study really hard to learn to speak Emberá in addition to Spanish. Well I was hoping to be a little further along by now, but I’ve picked up a decent amount through casual conversation and just a lot of listening. People keep telling me, “How long are you gonna be here? Another year? Ah you’ll go back to your village as an Emberá professor!”

Emberá people really like to talk. And I mean so much so that much of their day to day communication is based on completely unnecessary interactions. For example I could be standing in the river rubbing soap on my arm. Someone walking by will ask me, “Hey Benjamin, are you bathing?” In which case my response will be, “Yeah friend, I’m bathing!” Then he’ll say, “Ok good, keep bathing friend!” Or if I’m sitting in my house eating fried plantains, someone will ask me, “Benjamin what are you doing?” And I’ll say, “I’m sitting here, eating fried plantains.” Then of course he will say, “Ah you’re eating fried plantains, that’s good friend.” At first I thought that they would just talk to me like that because my Emberá language skill was pretty limited. But I realized that they actually do talk to each other like that all the time. My favorite is when somebody comes face to face with you and asks simply, “Are you there?” Then I’ll say, “Yeah I’m here” And he says “Good, keep being there friend.”

Everyone has something to say in community meetings 

Since the community is being ever more influenced by Latino culture creeping in around them, Spanish is spoken more commonly. But just as there are certain things you can’t express in Spanish that you can in English, it’s the same for Emberá. The result is what I call Spambera, a mix of Spanish and Emberá. I’ve gotten somewhat used to it and even started using it myself. This makes it somewhat amusing when a Latino comes from outside the community and can only understand half of what we’re saying.

 

Discussions with some of the water committee 

The challenge of communication is especially apparent in community meetings. It’s one thing to sit and listen to a group of people talk in circles for a while. It’s another thing when those people constantly switch between Spanish and Emberá and talk for six hours straight. I’ve been getting better at interrupting people mid-sentence so that I can get a word in. It’s actually not offensive at all, since most of the time somebody is just talking to break any silence. Usually in community meetings when I stand up to talk, people quiet down to give me a chance. “Benjamin is gonna say something, everybody shut up!” they´ll say as I get up out of one of the tiny school desk chairs we use for seating in the meeting house. After I finish they’ll nod and smile and say “Bia bua djaba!” which means “That’s good, friend!” The purpose of the meeting is often lost in a sea of tangents about anything from where the best coconut trees are to asking if anyone has seen their horse lately. When I schedule community meetings I usually count on at least a half hour for tangents, and maybe fifteen minutes for Joel to tell some jokes.

As you can tell, Emberá are really good at talking. They’re pretty funny too, sometimes without realizing it. Over the past month or so I decided to write down some of the random things that people in Nuevo Vigía say to me.

Here’s a sampling of Vigían quotes:

 “Emberá people really like playing basketball, we just don’t know how.”

-          Lucio

“You need a woman to keep you warm at night!”

-          Everyone

“So in the United States, even little kids know how to speak English?”

-          Niño

“There’s nothing more to life except eat, sleep, and shit.”

-          Old man Francisco

“As the gringos say, there are a lot of fish in the sea.”

-          Rubén

“It scares me to walk across this bridge at night, I feel like I’m going to fall in and get eaten by a crocodile.”

-          Enilda

“Here in Panama we just vote for whoever gives us free t-shirts.”

-          Yonairo

“Benjamín, you need to shave that beard. You look like Osama Bin Laden.”

-          Joel

“See that old guy over there in the loin cloth? Don’t mess with him, he’s a wizard.”

-          Cholo

“You’ve been getting pretty fat lately. Eating lots of plantains huh?”

-          Joel

“NEIGHBOR! What are you doing neighbor?”

-          My neighbor, Merqui

“Your yard is a mess, maybe you should do something about that.”

-          My other neighbor, Gilberto

“Ben-ha-MEEN… Plash!”

-          5 year old Poroto

“I was gonna come to your house yesterday, but I got really lazy…”

-          Estela

“Wait, so you’re not cold right now?”

-          Yamisleth

“Oh no, you’re sick? It was probably that juice I gave you.”

-          Esmín

“I’ll help you work on that right now. But first I’m gonna go sleep.”

-          Felino