The Language Barrier

Yesterday was probably the first time I experienced a major language barrier since I've gotten here. The worst part is that I had a translater with me and it was STILL difficult to convey my message. It all started when John, the youth pastor, came up with this zany kick-off game for the youth group that involved PVC tubing. John had no idea where to find PVC tubing, so he delegated that job to me. Sure, make the intern do all the hard stuff. Why not? At least he arranged for me to go hunting with the help of Israel, a Sudanese refugee on the property staff at our church. Israel and I took a taxi to Road 9 (which is sort of like a big long market place), and then walked around until we found a plumbing-type store. The first one we found was about the size of a walk-in closet. We walked into the closet and attempted to explain to the shopkeeper what we needed. Now, apparently our needs weren't as clear as they should've been because it took us at least 10 minutes to explain to this guy what we wanted. I was drawing pictures, trying to put things into different words, making all sorts of motions with my hands... very little was working! I was trying to explain that we didn't want the pipes for water, we wanted to build a cube-like structure out of them. He couldn't get around the idea that the pipes weren't being used for water, even though that was besides the point! The guy was also trying to convince us that if we wanted to build a cube with PCV tubing we would need 16 pieces of tubing, rather than the 12 I suggested. Either way, he did some calculations for us and said that it would cost roughly 1400 pounds for the pieces we wanted. Our budget was about 200 pounds for this project. So we went elsewhere and I got to go through the whole ordeal again! The second place gave us the stuff for 116 pounds, though, so that was a slight improvement. That same day I was scheduled for my first Arabic lesson, but it got postponed. At least I have some definate motivation for learning Arabic now. It's too annoying not knowing it!