Northeastern student Zora Hynnek was nervous and a little uncomfortable. It had been nearly an hour-long drive in a small car over bumpy roads. The morning rain had stopped and the tropical, early afternoon air was hot and getting hotter. And the community leaders of Naluvale, a village in central Uganda that Hynnek had never seen, were seated in a circle of folding chairs beneath a tree and introducing themselves in an unfamiliar language. “I remember smiling a lot because something I’ve learned throughout traveling and being in unfamiliar settings with huge language barriers, is that a smile is pretty universal communication,” Hynnek recalled in a recent interview.
Then it was her turn to speak. “Mwasuze mutya banyiabo ne basebo. Elinya lyange nze Zora,” Hynnek said, greeting the ladies and gentlemen and telling them her name. The grammar may have been imperfect, but the proverbial ice was broken. “They all smiled, and some of them clapped a little bit because it’s pretty rare that someone would be able to know so much (in their language) in such a short amount of time,” Hynnek said. “I could tell that they were thinking, ‘she’s really interested in integrating with us, not just coming here, speaking English and expecting that it’s going to be translated.’”
