Learn a new language, and the Silbo Gomero

by Abha Malpani on

I recently had the opportunity of meeting the co-founder of a new language-learning website called “Busuu”. Busuu is a language on the verge of extinction; apparently today it’s spoken by only 8 people in Cameroon. Other than that cool snippet of information, I didn’t pay much attention to the website until I got an email saying that it will teach you how to do the whistle “Gomero”, i.e. the Silbo Gomero.

The Silbo Gomero is a whistle that is (was?) used to communicate in Gomero, in the Canary Islands. People who know this language can communicate full sentences through this whistle, and since it can be heard up to a distance of 8 kilometers, it used to be an extremely useful way of communicating across the deep alleys and mountains of the island.(Voice can only travel 200 meters). It used to be a recognised language, but now since there are few people who can whistle this way and it’s not an easy whistle to learn, this “language” faces the threat of extinction.

Busuu aims to help preserve such languages that are under threat of disappearing, and their proactiveness towards trying to help users understand and learn this whistle is commendable. The fact that you are far from learning the whistle after looking at their material is a different point, but if they are planning to expand on such efforts, this is a great start. Here you can check out a great video they did that explores the hows and whats of this Silbo Gomero.



This whole learning the Silbo Gomero tactic could well be a publicity stunt for Busuu, but worth it if it drives traffic to this new and cool language-exchange/learning-community. The website is easy to navigate and presents a community-driven language learning system. Become a member and you can add study modules and attempt to familiarize yourself with a new language, with the option of being helped by native speakers of the language you want to learn. It all works on a system of mutual help, so it’s pretty cool to see it function well. Right now they offer opportunities to study English, French, Spanish, and German. Although you may not learn the language in any concrete or complete way, it’s a good place to start and to meet some multi-lingual people.

Band on the Run: The Gatineau Choo-Choo

by Ember Swift on

I just got back from a weekend in Wakefield, Quebec. I’m at home for one day between tours and as I’m typing this, the train whistle is calling me from across the fields through my open windows. Whenever I hear it, and provided I’m not completely indisposed, I go to the window and watch the train pass. I love watching it flicker through the trees, emerge along the neighbouring fields and then disappear into the distance.

The country is beautiful out here.

Trains are also amazing pieces of machinery. In Wakefield, they have a century-old steam train – one of the few remaining working steam engines in Canada – that runs up and down the Gatineau Hills. It is a tourist attraction and I was right in there too, snapping pictures and smiling. I especially loved the sounds it makes. It really sounds just like a cartoon train with its “choo choo” and “chug-a-chug-a.” You can almost hear it whispering “I think I can, I think I can” as it gathers speed and rolls away.

Wakefield is its turning point (i.e. it actually turns around in Wakefield), which is a sight to behold.

The train gets turned around on what is called a train turntable. When the engine is pointing back the other way again, caboose taking up the rear, it chugs on back to whence it came.

The people working on the train helped to push it around, including the musicians. I couldn’t resist the punny jokes about musicians being turntablists on the side. Imagine being employed to strum your guitar on a train with the caveat that you had to be on the “train turning” crew at half time! Such a mixed list of workplace expectations! It made me smile.

My friend works at CN and talks regularly about the environmental impact of planes and automobiles versus the lighter footprint of rail travel. Trains use up to 70% less energy and cause up to 85% less air pollution when compared to a jet. They use 17 times less fuel versus a jet and 5 times less than a car per passenger kilometre. (source.) Think of how many tractor-trailers we could take off the road if we were to put more of our tax dollars into repairing rail lines and renewing efforts to promote rail transport! It boggles the mind.

I was walking alongside of this tourist train with my friend Virginia and her son, Rowan. Virginia is my drummer Cheryl’s partner and together they have this perfect three-year old whose little voice saying “choo choo” was enough to melt me into a puddle of goo right there. He was so excited about the train, (which he was correctly calling a “steam engine,”) that we had to walk its length so we could see it all as it was preparing to roll away. He kept saying “Look Mommy! It’s the conductor!” or “Look Mommy! Look at the steam!”

I followed them slowly, snapping photographs and feeling wistful. My friend’s father drove trains for a living and he passed away a few years ago now. She’s told me stories about getting to ride with him when she was a kid and I wondered if she was as excited as Rowan was right now, exclaiming the whole time to her “Papa” about what she was seeing around her. What a thrill it is for a kid to just see a train up close, let alone get to ride with the conductor! I made a mental note to ask her about those experiences the next time I see her.

When we got to the engine it was giving off shimmering rays of heat, so much so that I had to stand back a bit out of its aura. The conductor, wearing the requisite overalls, sat in his little area in the engine car equipped with a window opening large enough for him to lean out of, one summer-tanned arm dangling over the edge like the train were his personal roadster. He tipped his striped blue and a white cap for the tourists and pulled the whistle from a string above his head, just like in the cartoons, and the steam billowed upwards with a woosh. It was all so storybook-like that I just stood there gaping at the thing, captivated.

As it pulled away, we waved to all the strangers who smiled and waved back. Each face looked happy to be waved at, as though they were the only ones we were seeing and bidding farewell to. The illusion was perfect; everyone could feel special when we were waving from the platform because (separated by the tall seats) they couldn’t see their fellow passengers waving back as well. Though regardless, the smiles were genuine. I think the charm of the experience reflected in everyone’s eyes. How could it not?

When the caboose finally passed by us it was like the flop of a dragon’s tail before it disappeared into the ocean. The sound of the train moving into the distance bounced off the river water – the perfect reverb on the fade-out to a perfect evening scene. We watched it weave around the angles of the river and leave Wakefield behind. Rowan was sad to see it go and wanted to follow it, but his Mommy reminded him that there’d be another one the next day and we could see it again. He perked up quickly. Not much keeps that little voice from sounding sunny.

And now as I’m writing this, I’m wistful again. There’s something about having been around the new joy of a three-year old that can remind a grown-up exactly how beautiful everything really is. Well, that’s what it did for me.

As I leaned out my upstairs window today and watched the train, I thought about how every moment can be complete if we just give it the space to be filled. Watching the train pass by at my house takes about two or three minutes, but they were the best three minutes I have spent all day.

I’m glad I took the time.

A Canadian in Beijing: Pedestrian Police in Shanghai

by Ember Swift on

Walking in Shanghai is a completely different experience to walking in Beijing. Unlike the latter that includes constant sidestepping and a forced alertness to mopeds on sidewalks or enormous bicycles catching my heels, Shanghai is tame.

After checking out the Bund, my friend Sarah and I took to the underground walkways that help pedestrians cross the wide busy streets (oh, how civilized!) and emerged again onto Nanjing Rd East, known in all the guide books as a shopping mecca for tourists. What this means, usually, is “expensive” shopping. And, yes, that’s what we discovered.

(But, then again, we’re from Beijing.)

We wandered farther and found cheaper markets about ten minutes north. These were full of people — swarming in fact — and I came to appreciate a particular employment here in Beijing:

Pedestrian Police.

I was charmed by their official whistle that – not once, not twice, but three times – beckoned me into obedience and stopped my Beijing-borne desire to jaywalk.

These men and women stand at major intersections and don fluorescent vests, whistles on strings around their necks and ropes that actually tie in the pedestrians when the crowds start to misbehave. They literally draw the rope across the waists of those who are in front of the crowd and about to spill into the roadway. It most certainly has a damming effect on the flow of feet.

In Beijing, I have joked with fellow students about the best way to cross the street being to “attach yourself” to a group of others and to cross at the same time. This is the clue that it’s possible: others are doing it! That theory, as you may have noticed, mentions nothing about traffic lights.

Here in Shanghai, the traffic police will wave you back with annoyance as though you’re not sophisticated enough to understand the simplicity of those very same traffic lights. It’s amazing that after only one month, I have come to regard traffic lights as just part of the décor and not an indication of how I ought to conduct myself as a pedestrian! In my Canadian style, when I was yelled at by the first “officer,” I felt sheepish and immediately apologized.

He eyed me with curiosity.

Most people do.

Oh Shanghai, where’s your anarchy?

Final pic by Sarah Keenan. All the rest by Ember Swift.