Learn to speak hausa in 3 phrases
It's 7 months since I last shared something with you. I've been mostly occupied practicing medicine somewhere in Arewa. Here's how it has been going:
Straight to the gist….
Ka iya turanchi?
You could also ask ‘Ka iya turanchi?’ You say ‘ka iya’ when referring to male and ‘kin iya’ when referring to female.
Uhmm, Dr. Idakwo, you are on call, so you’ll be in the admission room. Alright chief. Shirt ironed and tucked in? Check. Tie in place and flowing down smoothly? Check. Shoes, black and shining? Check. Stethoscope dangling? Check. Maximum ‘steeze’? Check. Walked with full composure to the admission room, picked up the white patient folder from the stack on the table and called out ‘Aisha Mohammed’.
The people of Arewa nation (because northern Nigeria is practically a different country), really can’t stress themselves. I can guess their names correctly in just 5 guesses. With female names, its always Aisha, Khadija, Fatima, Hauwa and the male names? It’s just Mohammed, Ibrahim, Sani, Adamu and Abubakar. Then Mohammed is remixed in several ways: Mohammed, Muhammed, Muhammad, Mohammad.
Anyways, I digress. The mother approached with her daughter and took her seat. ‘Ina kwana’ I greeted and proceeded to ask ‘What brought you to the hospital’. And she just stared blankly at me. After a few seconds, began to narrate, I believe, why she was in the hospital. Then, I too began to stare blankly at her.
Then it hit me. I don’t understand Hausa and she most certainly don’t understand English. So, I asked ‘Ka iya turanchi?’ Which literally means ‘Can you speak English.’ But you have to say it with the right intonation.
‘Ka iya turanchi’ is a question you don’t want to be asking. If you have to ask it, then its most likely that the answer is ‘No’. Asking the question means, you must have tried communicating in English and failed. Bear in mind that most arewans visiting this facility can’t speak English. Sometimes, I feel like they don’t even understand ‘Good morning’ (My arewans colleagues will not like this assessment, I know)
I must say that I am always staggered by the bravery of the these arewans here- in coming to the hospital to seek care and not being able to speak English. Where I spent most of my life, if you couldn’t speak English you would move with someone who could when going to hospitals, banks and other public service centres. Cultural differences or something, I guess.
If the question ‘Ka iya turanchi?’ was directed at me, I would say Ba turanchi, which means, No English, or something simple, but these guys are fond of going on a spiral as though they haven’t figured out that I can’t understand them. If the response is not in English, just know that they can’t speak English.
Anyways, I got an interpreter and then I realised, a one-eyed man with some serious eye defect can still be king in the land of the blind, but of course is not any better. Sometimes, it’s more difficult working with someone who has a little idea than with one who has no idea at all- ended up asking same questions in different ways and get little meaningful response- I certainly needed another interpreter communicate with this interpreter.
Ba shiga
The hospital is a unique environment to work in. you never know when hell is going to break lose. One minute, you are chatting on WhatsApp- slow day, the next minute, you are palms down elbows straight, pumping your upper body weight on somebody’s chest.
Sometime ago, it must have been a Wednesday, Monday is off the hook today. We were short-staffed because a couple of colleagues were unavoidably absent, leaving I and one other colleagues to man an admission room that is usually manned by 5-6 persons. Everything was going smoothly until patients suddenly began to come in numbers.
Now, recall, ba na jin Hausa. I don’t speak Hausa. My colleague could but she is just one person and she was a bit new to the unit at the time. While trying to sort out the situation at hand, a new patient comes in. This new patient was in need of more urgent care.
When approaching patient management, attention is given first to the more life-threatening condition. Had a consultant that would always ask during his ward rounds ‘Any sick child?’ The irony of the question. Everyone is sick that is why they are here. When a patient in a more critical state comes in, you leave every other thing and address that first. This is not something you want when you are short-handed.
The admission room remained busy in this fashion till afternoon. On this day, it really did go south. No losses though. All I wanted to do at a point was just paste ‘Ba shiga’ on the door at the entrance, then close it and go to rest.
‘Ba shiga’ is phrase for the stressful days, it’s a phrase for the days you need your peace at work. Just get it printed boldly or handwritten even on an A4 paper tilted to landscape and paste it on the door to your office, then close the door, put your phone on silent and sleep off with your ears plugged. You might wake to a query, but you will have your rest.
The idea is to live to fight another day.
Ba Hausa
‘Ba Hausa’ will save you, until it won’t. I once held a mini town hall in a section of the ward, but let’s rewind a bit.
In the first few weeks of working here. I had a bit of a smooth ride. I could escape doing a number things by simply reminding my good colleagues that I could not speak Hausa.
‘Ba Hausa’ means ‘No Hausa’. It is a way of saying you cannot speak Hausa, as one who cannot speak the language. A better way to say this would be ‘Ba na jin Hausa’ which is literally means ‘I don’t speak Hausa’
In my current zip code, Hausa is the official language. You would have some difficulties getting things done without the language. Scratch that, lots of difficult.
I first realized this when I heard Hausa being spoken without restraint from office to office. You enter an office and you are greeted in Hausa. You ask a question in English and you are responded to in Hausa. That’s the default.
When someone approaches you after a long work day and is speaking Hausa you can just say ‘Ba Hausa’ and walk away real quick, just in case the person can speak English 😂
But sometimes it won’t save you.
Like any other day, I went to update some patients on some consumables they would need to buy for their management. I pulled my tired body up the flight of stairs, walked into the ward, turned to the right where the patients were. Handed the prescription over to them and this is where it all began. The patients were not pleased to receive it. Not one bit. They began to complain, but in Hausa, even if they already knew that with me its ‘Ba Hausa’. They felt frustrated and I could see it but I just wanted to ba hausa my way away. I’m too tired for this, I thought. While still on the thought, I felt a hand poke my shoulders. For a millisecond, I feared I was about to be physically harassed. Hahaha 😂.
Now, when these my patients are admitted in the hospital, they usually have 2 to 3 relatives stay with them to provide assistance, and I was interacting with 3 parents. So, it’s safe to say, a protest was brewing and to make matters worse, I couldn’t even understand what was being said. I had to quickly get a nurse to help interpret. I haven’t thought about this until then- Language is security!
Here’s why they were frustrated. I had given them a prescription earlier and I had come again and added something to that prescription. Payment of hospital bills in Nigeria is essentially out-of-pocket. Zero health insurance. This means that things that need to be bought, payments that need to be made have to be done as the demand arises. Most persons do not have money readily available to cater for unexpected ill-health. You know how it is. So, I could understand their frustrations but I wasn’t sure they could understand that I had nothing to do with their frustrations.
What I thought would be a simple walk in, deliver and walk out situation turned into a 20 mins community consultation session. Almost lost my temper too. Have you noticed that when you give people opportunity to express themselves freely, they really do? They really go on to test the boundaries of ‘freely’. But I had to remain calm. E no dey hard for Nigerian patients to hook doctor shirt for neck. Make matter no escalate enter instablog.
Now you know 3 phrases in Hausa. Feel free to use them as the need arises. If you really want to learn Hausa, sorry, I can't really help you as you have realised 😂. Ina jin kadan kadan.
**In other news, I will be launching a YouTube channel dedicated to discussing health matters—the history, the science, the mysteries, and everything in between. You’ll find a lot interesting there. In the meantime, please TAP THIS to subscribe to the channel and get a notification when I post.
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Nice read ..
"Language is security" indeed😂
kuna lafiya