French students teach soldiers

A professor and four students from USM helped train members of the 177th Armored Brigade at Camp Shelby Tuesday in preparation for a humanitarian mission overseas.

Keltoum Rowland, a professor of French, said that the director of Camp Shelby's Language Training Unit, Master Sgt. William Richardson, contacted USM's foreign language department in October to provide the unit with a day-long crash-course in French instruction before they deploy today for Djibouti in Africa.

For the next 14 months, the soldiers will be in Djibouti, drilling new water wells and installing water purification systems, as well as other infrastructure improvements, in an effort to improve the area's water supply. The project is also a humanitarian endeavor by the U.S. military to improve its image in the Middle East.

Djibouti is a former French colony that was declared an independent nation in 1977. The primary languages in Djibouti are French and Arabic.

Rowland enlisted the help of four students in her upper-level French classes including Samantha Nix from Clinton, Laura Messer of Gautier, Amber Langley from Mobile, Ala., and Rachel Marlow of Virginia Beach, Va. Shortly after arriving at Camp Shelby, the group spent eight hours teaching key phrases to the group of soldiers to help them with their mission.

Nix, a senior English literature and French language double major, said the people living in Djibouti suffer not only from AIDS, which plagues 85 percent of the population, but also from water borne diseases that shorten their life expectancy even faster. She added that the soldiers intend to establish fresh wells there to help the people live longer, healthier lives.

"I have spoken playfully with other French students…but never with people who truly, absolutely needed the language," Nix said.

"They know that their ability to pick up some of the language could mean the difference between being polite and impolite," Nix said, "or even life and death.

"I know that the language skills I might have taught one soldier will be taken with him to Djibouti to help him give aid to communities that truly need it," Nix added, "and a simple 'ne buvez pas' (don't drink!) that I helped him or her repeat over and over may save a life."

"They were extremely fast learners," said Langley, a freshman speech communication major. "Imagine trying to cram French 101 into just a few hours." Despite the initial challenge, Langley said the soldiers were very enthusiastic about learning helpful French phrases.

Langley said that besides basic introductions, the soldiers were taught words and phrases that pertained to their mission like "well," how to tell civilians to come closer or back away and how to describe water as clean or unsafe.

"It is very necessary, I believe, that they have some means of communicating with the natives," Langley said. "I realize they cannot hope to be fluent in French immediately, but knowing a few phrases can make all the difference in the world."

Nix, Marlow and Messer have all spent time in France while studying abroad, and Nix said Tuesday was an excellent opportunity to share her language skills with others.

Messer, a junior public relations major, said that Rowland's French class helped her to gain confidence in her use of the language, but teaching others was a way for her to improve her own skills.

"We hope to return to Camp Shelby if they should ever need our help in the future," Messer said. "It was a wonderful opportunity for us, as students, to grasp our understanding of the French language and improve our own education through sharing it."