RPGnet Columns
10-07-2005, 09:45 PM
Post originally by Bipolar Bear at 2005-10-07 20:45:08
Converted from Phorums BB System
I was in Sri Lanka in 1995. Okay, so smallish country embroiled in civil war with three official languages, but no one speaks more than 2.
I was in a village on the east coast, an area under government occupation but believed to have a lot of insurgents. I was a research assistant for a university n the U.S.
The car broke down, but we were staying with friends. Friends that told us horrible things about the government troops. One guy had his arms and legs broken and was left to crawl back to his home 5 miles away when he had no useful information.
So, sure enough, we were in town for a government round-up. The dogs started barking at 4 am. My ulcer started churning at 5 am. A man with an M16 woke me up at 6 am.
So a little background. Singhalese is the government/majority language. Tamil is the insurgent/minority language. English is the former occupier/tourist language. Guess which two we spoke?
After a day of playing dumb and, they finally found us a anti-terrorist officer who spoke something besides Singhalese and realized we probably weren't arms dealers. We were released, but forced to leave the region immediately. The bus ride was miserable and only after years to think about it did I realize that the guy sitting next to me with the Ak-47 carbine in his duffel bag (which he asked me to hold for him at a checkpoint, thereby scaring the crap out of me) was, in fact, an agent sent to make sure we returned to Colombo as we promised.
I would have killed to be able to speak Singhalese at any point during that ordeal. And frankly, we were lucky to get out of there in one piece, since they could have shot us on sight easily.
For the record, aside from English, I only speak Indonesian/Malay with great difficulty. I WISH I were a language savant.
-C
Converted from Phorums BB System
I was in Sri Lanka in 1995. Okay, so smallish country embroiled in civil war with three official languages, but no one speaks more than 2.
I was in a village on the east coast, an area under government occupation but believed to have a lot of insurgents. I was a research assistant for a university n the U.S.
The car broke down, but we were staying with friends. Friends that told us horrible things about the government troops. One guy had his arms and legs broken and was left to crawl back to his home 5 miles away when he had no useful information.
So, sure enough, we were in town for a government round-up. The dogs started barking at 4 am. My ulcer started churning at 5 am. A man with an M16 woke me up at 6 am.
So a little background. Singhalese is the government/majority language. Tamil is the insurgent/minority language. English is the former occupier/tourist language. Guess which two we spoke?
After a day of playing dumb and, they finally found us a anti-terrorist officer who spoke something besides Singhalese and realized we probably weren't arms dealers. We were released, but forced to leave the region immediately. The bus ride was miserable and only after years to think about it did I realize that the guy sitting next to me with the Ak-47 carbine in his duffel bag (which he asked me to hold for him at a checkpoint, thereby scaring the crap out of me) was, in fact, an agent sent to make sure we returned to Colombo as we promised.
I would have killed to be able to speak Singhalese at any point during that ordeal. And frankly, we were lucky to get out of there in one piece, since they could have shot us on sight easily.
For the record, aside from English, I only speak Indonesian/Malay with great difficulty. I WISH I were a language savant.
-C