A Place To Bloom

The Teacher

Questions flooded my mind; I wasn't sure what to ask first. "What does ɣʊwo mean?"

"That depends," Ahmi said. She stood about as tall as my chest, but her presence didn't feel as small as her stature. She wore a cream-colored cotton loincloth with sharp corners over a brown belt that also held a knife. Aside from that her dark-green skin was exposed from her hips to her bare feet and toned tummy. Her breasts were covered each by a lock of feral white hair and she gazed warmly at me through bright yellow eyes. "How is it used?"

I glanced at the paper where I'd written it down and said the whole phrase. "pʊ ɣʊwose xatʌ."

Ahmi laughed hard, scrunching her eyes and smiling wide through her thick accent. "Who said that to you?"

"One of the girls in the medical ward said that to the guys that came in the other day."

"Ahh," she shook her head, still smiling wide. "Yes, Shamuni is quite eloquent. ɣʊwo is food, used as a verb here it means to eat. It is imperative, so... eat shit."

"Oh, OK." I couldn't help but laugh at that.

"Next question."

"The other day I was out with Miyani, and she said something to Blue, ŋʌvɪdeɣa. But I thought it was ŋʌvɪdesa?"

Ahmi smiled. "ɣa and ɣe are the familiar form of sa and se. Use them among family or your closest friends. I would recommend, for cultural reasons, that you avoid using them unless you hear someone use them with you, first. These are good; you are learning."

I turned to the side and squinted. "Am I allowed to ask anything?"

She gave off a warm smile with a light giggle. "I trust you recall where you accepted that nothing sexual will ever happen between us. Please keep that in mind. Aside from that you may ask anything you like."

I scratched my head. So many. "Miyani showed me a bird that made a peculiar whistle when a vita'o was nearby. It was uh..."

Ahmi pursed her lips and whistled the sound perfectly, up-down-up-down-warble.

"That's it!"

Her eyes popped. "She showed you that?"

"Yeah. But the book had a bunch of other calls I couldn't figure out..."

"Come," she gestured towards the gate, still with a warm smile.

And so we headed out. We made our way around the giant alligator. I looked behind us and saw Thunder and Lazybum racing one another. They zoomed past, one on each side of us only to jet across the field and scare some goats that were grazing about two-hundred yards down. The herder shouted some insults at them. They turned and rounded up the goats, snapping and hissing at the ones who refused to move, and brought them back to her.

"How long have you known Miyani? Was she one of your students?"

"No," Ahmi smiled as she watched the two lizards play. "I have been acquainted with her for years, but she only came to Carthia a month ago. I can tell you she is very traditional; if you learn the language from her, she will not allow you to mispronounce anything."

"Well that's good. Does she have a lot of family?"

"Not anymore," Ahmi shook her head. "They were massacred by the sewu'oŋi."

"What?" I said. "How? Why?"

"The saŋɪwesa were allied with the sewu'oŋi, and I don't know the whole story, but the elders ran afoul of kaxawi vi temper. To hear mɪyaŋi tell it, she understood they were about to be betrayed while the elders refused to believe it. Her brother stayed behind to try and convince the others while she gathered as many of her people as she could and led them to the only place she could imagine where they might be safe, here. I went back with her to help gather the rest, and everyone was killed. Everything was destroyed. Her whole family. Their houses were smashed and burned, and all their bodies thrown all about and covered in lye. That was what we found."