By: Pilar Tilos

Pilar Tilos, a Columban lay missionary in Pakistan spent many years in every type of parish ministry in her home town in Hinobaan, Negros Occidental. Here she tells us of the struggle she had to break the language barrier before she could begin her new mission ministry in Pakistan.

Starting Straight Away
October, 25th, 1990, four days after we arrived in Lahore, Fr. Pat Raleigh, in-charge of the language studies, gave us an orientation for the language program. We were told to study Punjabi (the local language of the people) because we would be working in the rural areas. The language course was to be for a full calendar year and the classes were to be held in the house where we lived in Iqbal town.

Like Lola Chewing Betel Nut
On that very first day of the language class, I felt quite nervous although I was a little bit excited about learning another foreign language. For me it was a privilege to learn another second language besides English and Spanish. The first lesson in grammar was to familiarize the “hard” sound and the “soft” sound. The hard sound is a consonant sound written in a capital letter and when you produce the sound the tongue touches your palate. It sounds as if your mouth is full of food while speaking at the same time. I was reminded of my grandmother, speaking to me while chewing her “minama”.

Pinching our Noses
The soft sound is also a consonant sound but is written in small letters and when you produce the sound your tongue is between your two teeth. They also had a lot of words that have a “nasal” sound. If you just listen to the speaker, she/ he has a speech problem. It really sounds funny and is so difficult to produce the correct sound. Sometimes we have to pinch our nose in order to produce a correct sound. I could hardly open my mouth after five minutes on the phonetic exercise.

Reading from Right to Left
The Punjabi is written in script and you have to start writing from the right side going to the left side. When I saw their book for the first time I asked myself: “Can I write it? Can I read it?” it looks like scratches we make when we are not sure the ballpen has still any ink. I find it hard to write on the line. We were also like babies learning and struggling to speak. It really needs patience. Anytime I wrote the words I was reminded of our adult literacy class back in Hinobaan, Negros Occidental. They way to write is the same as for those adults learning how to read and write. It is only now that I sympathize with them. Nevertheless, inspite of difficulties encountered while learning the language, there was still an excitement, joy and happiness to learn the Punjabi language especially when we could recognize their alphabet and could read some simple words. After three weeks Emma and I were thrilled to be able to read out “Pakistan” from a billboard.

Learning Crisis
Sad to say, the feeling of excitement, joy and happiness for the first three weeks gave away to frustration as we went on with the language class. There was a lot more pain than joy encountered. I became irritable. There were times that I would have liked to throw the book at the teacher. I could not look at them anymore. I felt bored. I was really fed up with the language. I stopped studying and started and started cutting classes although the class was held in our house- I just locked myself in my room. Many times I had sleepless nights.

Try Going Out
My personal supervisor suggested to me to get out from the house, go out to the “llaka” (community) and talk to the people there. I followed the suggestion and thank God I felt great again.

The Poor Egged Me On
Meeting people during the weekend helped me a lot to study the language again seriously. These urban poor people gave me hope and determination to continue learning the language. I even said to myself, “how could I communicate with these people if I will not learn their language?” Well, because of the poor people I met in different communities every weekend, with the encouragement and the concerns of the two languages teachers, Columban Fathers and the student overseas Training here in Pakistan, friends here and there, I was able to finish the language studies for a full calendar year.

Over at Last
I was so delighted that the language class was over. But, then, I had discovered that it was only the formal study was over! I realized lately that I was starting all over again. But this time it’s an informal study course and the people (children to grandparents) are my teacher. Oh, they are very strict! They will correct you at once if you mis-pronounce the word. It is quite hard to have so many teachers teaching you at the same time but, I enjoy it. There is life in it!

I was reminded of my grandmother, speaking to me while chewing her “minama”

There were times that I would have liked to throw the books at the teacher.