C'est Pas Facile

Being from Boston means that there are a fair amount of words associated with my daily vocabulary. Wicked, and cool just being a few of the words in my quiver of stereotypical language. However, if you’re from a region where you feel like you often say the same phrases again and again and again- rest assured you’ve got nothing on the Burkinabe. From “ou bien” to “c’est pas facile” to “en tout cas” here you’ll never find yourself in need of a few words to make conversation with.

A Burkinabe told me that silence is bad (a stark contrast to the Silence is Golden rule that Americans seem to love) but having an infinite resource of go to words to avoid silence seems like a good way to solve (or just avoid) the problem.

While sometimes it can be exasperating to hear someone say “C’est pas facile” after sitting in silence for a bit and you’re left wondering what (or if) that is in reference to something it is also a wonderfully double edged sword. When someone talks to me in moore and I don’t understand I can always throw in one of those phrases (or the moore equivalents) and get myself out of a tight spot in a hurry. The thing with double edged swords though: don’t get stuck by the pointy end. Which in my case- you have to hope really hard that they didn’t say something such as: your house is burning down, someone stole your bike, or anything that may be important like that. In that case I just try and get the person to repeat what they said slowly and hope I’m interpreting gestures, words, and silences the right way. It’s like a big giant puzzle that’s incredibly fun to solve.

As time goes on I find myself learning more moore words to supplement my French words that I use to fill silences that threaten to become awkward. Most of the time I’m really psyched that I’m learning (and using) my moore vocabulary but then the question comes up: if I’m acquiring and using words that don’t really mean things- does it still count? Just food for thought.