A friend of mine from the Democratic Republic of Congo, *Tony; a humble and well travelled man engaged me in religious matters in one recent evening at around seven. No, I led him to that end in which he participated with verve. With him being a Muslim and me being a man who believes in the Lord without any membership to any fraternity to confirm such, did not pose any threat of a heated exchange of views on our respective beliefs as one would imagine these types of engagements do. I suppose we bear similar traits where tolerance and empathy are concerned to name but a few.
Before I can relate the story of our religious conversation, let me reveal something about my friend. *Tony lived an extremely eventful life characterized by many heart-shattering incidents. He was once a refugee, a child soldier, a rebel and several other lives which circumstances demand of people at times. The things he's seen with his own eyes would usher in a bout of perpetual nightmares for other souls. These stories would have some people hate as a means of survival, a means to deal with the past by holding on to hostile sentiments about earlier events. But my friend, from whom I'm learning a great deal about life in some parts of Africa is not like that. His passion for life elevates him above all the negative and acidic emotions which would otherwise corrode his spirit from within.
*Tony is able to speak fluently in at least ten languages from different parts of Africa; a great advantage if I may point out. He runs a small shop where he sells items you’d find in a convenient shop. Our conversation, we conducted between brief and far in between breaks caused by his customers while his younger brother sat in the shop not bothered by our conversation and the seldom patrons who came by for one thing or another.
During our conversation, he spoke at length about the Quaran - I let him be. He straddled between English and Arabic in an attempt of explaining the contents of the ‘holy book’ as he enthusiastically referred to it. In his enthused talk, he allowed long pauses to break down the segments of information he was sharing with me; it appeared he had a lot to share with me. I suppose also, the disparities and discrepancies which existed in the two books of reference we were dealing with only widened the plain we had to walk over in understanding some teachings and compare notes.
I stood there enjoying every moment of his talk while taking mental notes of many things around. For one, I was amazed at the levels of variation in the information between religions which are following one source of life. I was also fascinated at the way his face changed form when the conversation intensified. I suppose this happened where he felt the talk needed to assume a very formal air as the subject’s elements became very critical, where some laws ought to be proclaimed strongly. Whenever he got into those elements I presumed were critical, his eyes seemed to light with caution. He would use less of his hands and assume an authoritative face. At this point I would see his determination to uphold the teachings of the Quaran.
In between talking in English and Arabic in our comparing of notes, I could see the amount of effort he made use of in maintaining his order and articulation. I could see him translate messages he wanted to convey from Arabic to English in his mind with a painstaking effort; those pauses were purposeful and served him a generous deal of help in making sense.
At this point, one patron came by to enquire about time which inevitably broke our conversation again. *Tony looked behind him to talk to his brother who was fiddling with a Personal Computer, to enquire about time on his patron's behalf. He spoke in a language I could not understand and the response also came in such a language. After this, he looked at his patron who appeared to have just woken up from a long sleep, probably prolonged by alcohol he appeared to have drank earlier and said confidently:
‘It is seven minutes past one'
The patron thanked him and walked away. Something was terribly wrong.
*Tony and I burst out laughing. We laughed like thunder when it suggests it would rain soon - an explosion of laughter.
While laughing, *Tony explained that he translated what his brother told him about time to his patron in exactly the same manner as they would say it in their language. We both laughed out more at how translation could go horribly wrong. In addition to this, we were laughing at the fellow who took ‘seven minutes past one’ as a valid time without any questions. I suspected, and I was certain that Tony suspected the same, that his patron may have had an awful lot to drink earlier not to even have realized that it was in fact one minute past seven in the evening.
This incident reminded me of the courts of law where people's fates are decided on what they say and how that is being communicated by translators in cases which make use of such means to discuss a matter. In some instances, like the one I will mention shortly, through the help of the interpreter, people’s utterances may be incorrectly translated yielding a terrible and regrettable consequence.
I went to the Cape Magistrates Court once, just to remind myself of the procedure in the court of laws. Fortunately, I sat in one of those ‘petty crime’ cases where the State leads evidence on behalf of the victim – citation for these cases often read State vs. Accused.
In this particular one, a young woman was giving evidence against a fellow who had a phuzaface, who stood clumsily in the dock. Apart from the facial expression he wore, maybe forced by the prevailing circumstances, I pitied him and empathized with his unenviable position.
Evidence was lead by a stern lady whose knowledge of the criminal procedure was evident in her confident and articulate questioning. To assist her in this quest where language was concerned, was another lady who translated the Prosecutor's questions to the accused in Afrikaans and his responses to the Prosecutor and the court in general in English – someone would have branded the translation from Afrikaans to English as done in ‘broken English’, to give you an idea of its nature. It was frightening to learn of the distortions she rendered on the accused responses. And to my relief and joy, the Magistrate cautioned her against such misrepresentation of facts. I did not sit long in the gallery as I had to go somewhere, but learnt before my departure that the fellow in the dock was accused of snatching the witness’ purse.
My point is this: a person's fate can easily be decided by terrible translation as in the incident of the court case above. Filters in our cultural background, education, religion, and many others, allow us to receive information in the manner we want which could easily be catastrophic – those who know such phenomenon refer to this as selective perception.
In other instances, like in Tony's friend's reaction, it may be innocuously amusing. Nonetheless, we're people who often get lost in translation.
Foot notes:
* means not his real name.
Phuzaface means someone whose face has lost its glow due to excessive drinking, thus look like they are drunk when they are not; it becomes a permanent look for as long as the individual drinks excessively.
Deon Simphiwe Skade (C)
Apr 2010
