Learning Setswana

Setswana Lessons

            Before our departure, we had understood that English was the official language of Botswana, that everyone spoke it, but that we would learn some Setswana (the major local language) so as to be able to integrate better.  That wasn’t quite the case.  Here in Kanye, the language of the streets is almost exclusively Setswana.  While education is conducted in English from about the third grade, people use their mother tongue for the most part.

            Television illustrates this.  In our host family home, the television receives only one channel: BTV, Botswana television, the only broadcast station in the country. (Many families – but not ours – also own a satellite dish, which receives channels from South Africa.  Some of our fellow volunteers are already hooked on a South African prime time soap opera entitled Generations).  BTV broadcasts the evening news in Setswana at 7 and in English at 8 (different anchors).  Talk shows and locally produced entertainment is mostly all broadcast in Setswana.  Other content, including cartoons and bad American sitcoms, are all broadcast in English.

            All of this has given some urgency for us to learn Setswana.  The urgency also comes in the form of our intensive language instruction, which includes one on one oral examinations and a requirement that we test at a “novice high” level in order to be sworn in as volunteers.  To learn, have been meeting in small groups at a host family home with our Setswana instructors several times a week.  We have homework and we are expected to practice with our host families.

            Needless to say, this has been a challenge.  Part of learning a language is learning its grammar, which is not hard for me.  The more important part is learning the vocabulary, which is hard to do for us older folks.  Setswana is a Bantu language, so it has nothing in common with most European languages.  Stephanie recognizes some words that are similar to Swahili (which she learned for Peace Corps in Kenya in 1973). Still, Swahili is a mixture of Arabic and (apparently) a Bantu language, so she really does not have much of an advantage. 

            Last Thursday, we had our first oral examination in Setswana, one on one.  Attached is a photo of me from that day heating up a cup of tea in the microwave of our classroom at the Kanye education center, surrounded by other nervous volunteers, just before we are to be called in to our individual exams.  Stephanie and I each think that we came through it reasonably well: not the highest, not the lowest.  There are a number of bright young volunteers in our group, some with prior experience in Kenya and in South Africa (where several million speak Setswana) and some with recent college experience absorbing exotic languages like Arabic.  They are more enthusiastic and more adept at picking up Setswana.  Watching them, it took us back many years to our own high school experiences learning a language.  Among them, there is some competition.

            We will all find out how well we did on our exams shortly.  We will then be re-sorted by ability into new small groups for Setswana classes.  Since some of our group will be placed deep into the Kgalahadi (Kalahari Desert), they will be place in groups to learn as well some Sekgalahadi, the local language spoken there, closely related to Setswana.  We are not likely headed out there, so we probably will not be placed in one of those groups.