What kinds of things and people might learners want to be in contact with in order to learn?
Ivan IllichIt takes more time and effort and delicacy to learn the silence of a people than to learn its sounds. Some people have a special gift for this. Perhaps this explains why some missionaries, notwithstanding their efforts, never come to speak properly, to communicate delicately through silences. Although they "speak with the accent of natives" they remain forever thousands of miles away. The learning of the grammar of silence is an art much more difficult to learn than the grammar of sounds.
Ivan IllichCulture makes pain tolerable by interpreting it's necessity; only pain perceived as curable is intolerable.
Ivan Illich