Vocab in the Fields

On Monday morning of our second week at CBT our language trainer, Saïd, sent us out to the fields to walk around, find farmers, and practice our Tashlhit by telling them about our daily activities. It was a bit unnerving, interrupting a villager hard at work to say “Hi, my name is Felicie, I am American. I get up at 6 AM every day. I go to school Monday through Saturday from 8 am to 6pm. I am learning Tashlhit”. I could barely even say that without my notebook in front of me. I ran into 3 farmers and managed to introduce myself and tell them at whose house I was living, and they told me what crops were in their fields. I still had a long way to go with the language. In the afternoon we interviewed an 80 year old farmer in the fields about olive and almond trees. Our teacher translated this time, so we learned a great deal. I love those kinds of interactions. I think when I get to post I’ll be able to find someone who speaks enough French to help me in such interviews, inch’allah.

One night, I was practicing sentences with the verb “to like” and going over them with my host mom. I tried to tell her “I like coffee with milk (half milk, have coffee)” and she erupted in laughter. Turns out I had told her “I like coffee with baby donkeys”.