Words We’re Bringing Back With Us

Post by Lara

14 March 2013 (Pi Day!)

When we found out we were coming to Sierra Leone for our Peace Corps service, we read in our invitation packet that English is the official language of instruction. This may lead some to believe (as it did us initially) that we would be able to communicate with Sierra Leoneans immediately and without translation. Turns out, we had another thing coming.  While it may be possible in Freetown and some of the bigger cities to get by just speaking English, Krio and local languages dominate the scene, especially in rural areas. Even the English spoken here is pretty far from American English—African English is sort of an entity unto itself, and on top of that Sierra Leone is a former British colony so any Western influences on the language are British English (think “trousers” instead of pants and “mending” instead of fixing things).  Thus, in the time we’ve been here our English has slowly morphed into something that is more understandable to your average Sierra Leonean.  Some of the new additions to our vocabulary are totally coming with us when we return to the states, including:

Snap! In Salone, you don’t take a picture. You snap.  Any time we pull out a camera in public we are immediately surrounded by a swarm of children screaming “Snap me! Snap me!” Not only is this a totally appropriate way to describe taking a picture, it also saves us several syllables, and we do love efficiency.

Verandah – Houses here do not have porches, patios, or stoops—only verandahs.  Some verandahs are big, some small—some enclosed, some open. Our own house has both a front and back verandah.

Eh Bo! Krio has a number of fun expressions, and this is one of our favorites. You can call anyone roughly your age or younger “Bo,” and the “Eh” is basically an exclamation of dismay.  Example: Musa, the 4-year-old neighbor boy, drops a candy wrapper on my verandah. “Eh Bo! Don’t throw away trash on my verandah!”

Spoil – Things do not break here. They spoil [Krio: poel].  This applies to tools, cars, buttons, anything you can think of that can stop functioning properly.  Example: The water pump has spoiled. Call a mechanic.

Osh Ya – This is a Krio word that doesn’t really have a good English translation.  “Osh” is what you say to someone who is sick, grieving, injured, or otherwise in a bad state. It’s not exactly “I’m sorry”… It’s more like, “I sympathize”.  It’s what you say to someone when you really don’t have anything else to say.  The Mende equivalent is gbe hoe or gbena hoe [“BAY-way/bay-NA way”].

i don don / i no de – In Krio, when something is totally used up, i don don [it has finished].  For about a month in our town, kerosene don don.  This is also used to refer to someone finishing a project, a class, etc.  Similarly, if something or someone is not around, i no de [he/she/it is not there].  For instance, when we go to the bar in town and ask for our favorite flavor of Fanta (lemon lime of course), about half of the time the bartender informs us that i no de, so we settle for orange Fanta. 

Binch (“beench”) – This is the Krio word for beans, and isn’t it way better?  We think so. On a related note, the word for ants is anch. We also love this.

Sabi – We’ve mentioned the Krio word sabi, “know,” before.  It’s great for handing out compliments: “Abubakar sabi dans o!” [“Abubakar knows how to dance!”]. It’s equally fine for teasing people, especially your 4-year-old neighbor who claims to know how to do everything: “Na  lay! Musa, yu no sabi.” [It’s a lie! Musa, you don’t know.”]

Scrub-scrub – We may or may not have mentioned that we don’t have a dishwasher here (to be fair, we didn’t have a dishwasher in Urbana either), so all of our pots, pans, plates, cups, and silverware get washed the old fashioned way with some strong lye soap, a bucket of water, and a whole lot of elbow grease. Remember how we cook over a fire? Yeah, washing dishes with burned-on sauce and charcoal soot takes some serious muscle.  Enter the scrub-scrub—the Krio word for SOS pad. We go through them pretty quickly, so it’s a good thing they only cost about a quarter in the market.