Non-verbal and verbal communication

Have been out of town the whole week and spent most of my time in Ebzimo and Kafaramme.

Dzjidde (Grandfather) is very ill and everybody expects the worst. Most of the time, he doesn't recognize anybody, except for a few of his children and sometimes he suffers great pain. The few moments is better, he is asking for all his children to be with him. But everybody is hoping he will recover. Maybe...

In the meantime, I have began to talk more - in Arabic, I mean. Up until now, I was always the silent one. No big conversations, but that is not what the villagers expect. They want to talk about the weather, about the price of food and other basic stuff.

Since a few days, I'm using "a" as "yes". It took me a long time to do this. "La" (French pronunciation) while raising the head and eyebrows came natural already in the Summer. Just raising your eyebrows is enough to say "no". Raising your head at the same time is a definite "no".

A lot of non-verbal communication is used over here. You can have a conversation without saying a word. Some other examples are :

- turning the hand while the fingers are pointing upwards with a questioning painful expression on the face means : What's the matter ?
- moving the head sideways a few times while smiling and telling something means : I'm very pleased about what I'm telling. It is almost the same as the Indian way to say "Yes".
- moving the hand from left to right in front of the breast or a bit higher while the fingers are pointing upwards, the head is raised means "never".
- nodding the head while uttering a few "ts"s means "That is a sorrowful or painful matter".

I also discovered that people over here use 'Harraam" a lot as a polite way to say that they do not agree with some decision or with a certain action while it actually means 'Bad luck'.

Khaled, Serwat's husband, doesn't want any name that is foreign - It is 'Harraam" - while Serwat is only interested in foreign names. The baby hasn't got a name yet.