A few days ago, I woke up without a voice.
Without much of one, anyway.
I wasn’t particularly surprised, as I was several days into an epic battle with whatever monster had set up residence in my sinuses and throat.
But the thing about living amongst folk whose first language is not English is that talking kind of takes a back seat. There’s a lot of time for contemplation and thinking here in the bush. I think while I scrub my laundry. I think while I wash the dishes. I think while I explore the bush trails to figure out which ones are faster than the roads (basically none of them, at least for the places I want to get to). I think while the neighbor kids kick the living tar out of the single solitary soccer ball we own, whose days are surely numbered.
So somewhere in there, I started thinking about what it is to be Voiceless.
It’s kind of a buzzword in social justice. Unborn babies are Voiceless. Homeless families are Voiceless. Victims of abuse or trafficking are Voiceless. This week one of the neighbor kids was sick and needed medical attention outside of designated clinic hours (sigh, oh all of the sighing), and one could have referred to her as Voiceless. You might even call the kids who are currently climbing my mango tree—the kids whose access to education and healthcare and opportunity is obscenely limited compared to Western standards—Voiceless.
But let me tell you something.
They have voices.
OH, do they have voices.
Their voices are loudest between the hours of 1pm and 3pm, when Teresa is trying to sleep.
Their voices say kind things, but also unkind things, and so sometimes their voices tattle to tell me that others’ voices are “sulting” (insulting) them.
Their voices cry “Odi!” when they approach my front door, which is the verbal equivalent to “knock-knock,” and then their voices chatter happily back and forth as they deposit the bowl of tomatoes that their sweet mother sent to my tomato-deficient soul and return to give her my undying thanks.
Their voices sing songs whose words are lilting and unfamiliar to me, and their voices count to thirty when they play on the swings at the playpark, because EVERYONE wants to play on the swings and so after 30 pushes you have to get off and let someone else have a go.
I wasn’t particularly surprised, as I was several days into an epic battle with whatever monster had set up residence in my sinuses and throat.
But the thing about living amongst folk whose first language is not English is that talking kind of takes a back seat. There’s a lot of time for contemplation and thinking here in the bush. I think while I scrub my laundry. I think while I wash the dishes. I think while I explore the bush trails to figure out which ones are faster than the roads (basically none of them, at least for the places I want to get to). I think while the neighbor kids kick the living tar out of the single solitary soccer ball we own, whose days are surely numbered.
So somewhere in there, I started thinking about what it is to be Voiceless.
It’s kind of a buzzword in social justice. Unborn babies are Voiceless. Homeless families are Voiceless. Victims of abuse or trafficking are Voiceless. This week one of the neighbor kids was sick and needed medical attention outside of designated clinic hours (sigh, oh all of the sighing), and one could have referred to her as Voiceless. You might even call the kids who are currently climbing my mango tree—the kids whose access to education and healthcare and opportunity is obscenely limited compared to Western standards—Voiceless.
But let me tell you something.
They have voices.
OH, do they have voices.
Their voices are loudest between the hours of 1pm and 3pm, when Teresa is trying to sleep.
Their voices say kind things, but also unkind things, and so sometimes their voices tattle to tell me that others’ voices are “sulting” (insulting) them.
Their voices cry “Odi!” when they approach my front door, which is the verbal equivalent to “knock-knock,” and then their voices chatter happily back and forth as they deposit the bowl of tomatoes that their sweet mother sent to my tomato-deficient soul and return to give her my undying thanks.
Their voices sing songs whose words are lilting and unfamiliar to me, and their voices count to thirty when they play on the swings at the playpark, because EVERYONE wants to play on the swings and so after 30 pushes you have to get off and let someone else have a go.
Their voices are patient and only a little teasing when they
slowly repeat that Bemba word over and over until I finally get it, and then
their voices dance in laughter across the fields as I try out my new vocabulary
on unsuspecting villagers.
They are NOT Voiceless.
They are NOT Voiceless.
But it is true
that they, and others like them, are not always Heard.
So in all of my thinking this week, it occurred to me how twisted it is that we use that term for them: Voiceless. And I know there are all kinds of layers and connotations to the word, and that the term is at least partially more a commentary on a society that gags than it is on those who are silenced, but still… That word. As though they are the ones who lack something, who are deficient in their ability to speak or say or sing. It occurred to me that perhaps the rest of us… the world’s 1%... maybe we should be the ones wearing the label. Maybe the tragedy is not that they are voiceless. Maybe the tragedy is that we do not listen. Their voices work. Our ears refuse to listen.
We are Deaf.
We’ve been in Fimpulu a bit over 2 weeks now. We try, daily, to be slow to speak and quick to listen. We have much to learn about life here and much to unlearn regarding patriarchal tendencies (no matter how unintentional) or misconceptions about Zambia(ns) we may have picked up in the past. We are surrounded now, on a daily basis, by obvious and undeniable need. Of course, we cannot meet them all. And I do not believe we are called to. But one thing we can do is listen, and learn, and acknowledge the personhood and dignity (and sheer volume) of the voices.
So in all of my thinking this week, it occurred to me how twisted it is that we use that term for them: Voiceless. And I know there are all kinds of layers and connotations to the word, and that the term is at least partially more a commentary on a society that gags than it is on those who are silenced, but still… That word. As though they are the ones who lack something, who are deficient in their ability to speak or say or sing. It occurred to me that perhaps the rest of us… the world’s 1%... maybe we should be the ones wearing the label. Maybe the tragedy is not that they are voiceless. Maybe the tragedy is that we do not listen. Their voices work. Our ears refuse to listen.
We are Deaf.
We’ve been in Fimpulu a bit over 2 weeks now. We try, daily, to be slow to speak and quick to listen. We have much to learn about life here and much to unlearn regarding patriarchal tendencies (no matter how unintentional) or misconceptions about Zambia(ns) we may have picked up in the past. We are surrounded now, on a daily basis, by obvious and undeniable need. Of course, we cannot meet them all. And I do not believe we are called to. But one thing we can do is listen, and learn, and acknowledge the personhood and dignity (and sheer volume) of the voices.
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