Episode 21 - School

Monin yupela olgeta! I’ve now finished my first week of language learning a cultural orientation. It’s a lot of fun and everyone on the course is lovely! As well as learning in the classroom, we’ve walked to the nearby villages to practice with and to get to know the locals. For a language with so many words that sound familiar to an Englishman, Tok Pisin is really hard! I came home every night with my mind full of things it wanted to remember feeling like it was going to explode! It always feels like I’ve forgotten an awful lot of what I wanted to remember, but even in just one short week I feel like I’ve learnt a lot. I’m really glad that I’ve had two months in work first, surrounded by the language, I think this has really helped. I’m really grateful too, that I can come back in the afternoons and spend time with all the people at work, asking them all of my questions and practicing with them. They’re so helpful and have been so good with me. They seem to enjoy watching me as I desperately try to wrestle a particular word from my memory and seeing my face switch from fierce concentration to deep joy once I finally find it! It’s also been really good travelling in on PMV. Everyone is so friendly, and it’s been great hearing the stories of so many different people. It’s also been wonderful practice for my Tok Pisin, there have been so many people who once they have found out I’m going to Tok Pisin lessons have insisted in conversing only in Tok Pisin. They’ve all been so helpful in showing me how I should be saying things and they’ve made it loads of fun too!