The Translator
"She translates for foreign delegations visiting Zanzibar. He's the junior trade attaché. Between languages, they find a communication that needs no words."
Bi Naima speaks seven languages.
Arabic, Swahili, English, French, Portuguese, Hindi, Mandarin. She's been translating for Zanzibar's government for thirty years—foreign delegations, trade missions, diplomatic visits. At fifty-seven, she's the best on the island.
I'm the new trade attaché from the mainland.
I speak two languages badly.
"Your Swahili is terrible," she tells me after my first meeting.
"Thank you for your candor."
"Someone needs to be honest with you." She's massive in her professional dress—two-fifty of linguistic authority. "If you're going to work here, you need private lessons."
"Can you recommend a tutor?"
"I'm offering."
The lessons begin in her office.
Vocabulary, grammar, the subtle differences between coastal Swahili and what I learned in school. She's patient but demanding.
"Your pronunciation is wrong. Listen." She demonstrates. "Now you."
I try. Fail.
"Again." She moves closer. "Watch my mouth."
I watch her mouth.
I think about other things.
Weeks pass.
My Swahili improves. The delegations stop laughing at me. Bi Naima allows herself small smiles of approval.
"You're learning," she admits one evening. We're alone in her office—the staff has gone home, the building is quiet. "But there's still much work to do."
"What kind of work?"
"The intimate vocabulary." She pauses. "The words you can't learn in classrooms."
"What words?"
She tells me.
The words she teaches are explicit.
Terms for body parts, for actions, for desires. She speaks them clinically, making me repeat, correcting my accent.
"This word is important," she says. "For when you're negotiating—certain things. Personal things."
"Are we negotiating something?"
"We might be." She leans closer. "If your pronunciation improves."
It improves.
Enough that one night, after a particularly long session, she demonstrates what the words mean.
"This is mapaja," she says, spreading her thighs. "And this—here—is kuma."
I shouldn't be seeing this. Shouldn't be learning anatomy from a fifty-seven-year-old translator in a government office.
But I'm learning.
She teaches me in three languages that night.
Swahili first—the coastal words, the intimate vocabulary. Then Arabic—older, deeper, words that have been whispered in Zanzibari bedrooms for centuries. Then English—clinical terms that become obscene when moaned.
"You're a good student," she gasps as I demonstrate my learning.
"I have a good teacher."
The lessons continue.
By day, she translates my meetings, makes me sound competent, covers my mistakes. By night, in her office or her apartment, she teaches me things no textbook contains.
"This is how you please a Zanzibari woman," she says, guiding my hands.
"And an Arab woman?"
"Different approach. Let me show you."
She shows me everything.
My term in Zanzibar ends after two years.
The ministry wants me back on the mainland. Higher position. Better pay. Everything I should want.
"Take me with you," Naima says.
"As what?"
"Your translator. Your advisor." She smiles. "Your teacher. I'm not done with your lessons."
"And if the ministry asks why I need a personal translator?"
"Tell them you're still learning. That Bi Naima is essential for your work." She pulls me close. "Some negotiations never end."
She comes with me.
Dar es Salaam, then Nairobi, then wherever my career takes me. Always at my side. Always translating.
Always teaching, in the hours when no one is watching.
"What language tonight?" she asks in our hotel room in Addis Ababa.
"All of them."
She laughs. "Then we'll be here a while."
Mkalimani.
Translator.
Speaking every language.
Teaching every word.
Even the ones that need no translation.